The poll panel is right in striking a cautionary note that tax raids on candidates should not appear selective

The countrywide Income Tax raids on political parties, their allied networks and the seizure of massive amounts of unaccounted cash this election season are not the tip of an iceberg or a scam that has just been unearthed. The use of unaccounted money during elections is an open secret considering the ridiculously low limits on spending — Rs 70 lakh for Lok Sabha and Rs 28 lakh for Assembly — and the improbability of sustaining a long-drawn campaign with it. Of course, there is a need to address this issue through an electoral reforms process where realistic spending limits and full disclosure of corporate donations would ultimately ensure transparency. But till that happens, every party and candidate is liable to come under the arc of suspicion. However, this is not a defence but an explanation of the largescale abuse of a system that encourages rather than discourages the use of black money. There is no doubt that the corrupt need to be punished, considering a faulty system has bred an equally strong underbelly. But to assume that only Opposition leaders are prone to wrong-doings and the ruling party and its allies are a disciplined lot while co-existing in the same eco-system is a tad too far-fetched. Media reports say that over the last six months, the IT department has conducted 15 searches on Opposition leaders and only one on a BJP leader.

So as tax raids appeared concentrated on the Congress in Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Andhra Pradesh, it did compel the Election Commission (EC) to make a realistic assessment that the raids shouldn’t be seen as targetting the Opposition as part of political vendetta. Particularly when Madhya Pradesh, which slipped out of the ruling BJP’s grasp in the Assembly elections, and TDP’s Chandrababu Naidu, who walked out of the NDA, have left the party bitter. The Congress-JD(S) alliance government in Karnataka is also a sore point. It isn’t rocket science to understand that the righteousness of the move would have influenced the voter for whom corruption is still a deciding concern. So when the revenue department, which is under the Finance Ministry, countered the EC’s advisory, saying it should ask its field officers to take immediate enforcement action at their end on unaccounted cash instead, it amounted to administrative insolence of a lame-duck regime. The EC, which is empowered to take decisions while enforcing the Model Code of Conduct, rightly reprimanded that it did not need referees and that it could be as “ruthless” but would act without bias. And it has with its own raids across the spectrum. As it is, the EC has had its hands full recently, dealing with transgressions about subtle campaigning through TV programming, films, channels and communal remarks made by various leaders. People have already questioned its credibility and lambasted its toothlessness in the face of a determined government. It would do best for both institutions to avoid a public spat over their differences. The corrupt need to be punished regardless of their political affiliations. Period. This is what the BJP itself had done when its chief Bangaru Laxman was caught taking money in a sting operation. Selective raids, particularly during election time, will raise questions even in genuine cases. Also, these clampdowns should not be confined to the poll season but be a continuous process of evaluation. Many surveys have shown how legislators pile up a more than 100 per cent growth in assets in a five-year term. Surely, everybody has a right to build personal wealth but if it happens uniformly for all legislators, then there is reason to go to the roots of the fastest returns. That would help in eliminating financial jugglery in a system, which needs reforms on a priority basis.