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| Don’t go by their declarations | | |
One has to accept what is furnished on an affidavit unless the same is contracted by strong evidence but the assets declared by our politicians seeking elections from Kashmir to Kanyakumari are something hard to swallow. They are a part of public life and the style and profile they keep is known well to all. When Dr Farooq Abdullah was contesting assembly elections in 2008 he declared value of his house in Jammu at Rs 40 lakhs. Anyone who has passed through that street can well estimate the house anything above Rs 5 Crores. It is doubtful if the statement of assets and personal wealth made by candidates in affidavits filed with their nomination papers will help the voters and the public to form any clear idea of their worth. There is in fact reason to feel that the details of the assets, including the moveable and immoveable property, bank balances and other items of wealth, do not represent the true worth of many candidates. There are many details in most affidavits that indicate misrepresentation, understatement or falsification. Move out of Jammu and Kashmir and a reading of the hundreds of affidavits filed in the last few days, including those of the Deve Gowdas, the Rahul Gandhis, the Sharad Pawars and the Lalu Yadavs, leaves one with the impression that they hide more than they reveal. Many of the candidates do not have a roof over their heads, have no car of their own, are left with only a few thousands of rupees in the bank, and have strangely borrowed money from their families. Decades of holding positions of power and authority at state or national levels have not done many of them any good. The patterns of statements of wealth and liabilities are suspiciously similar across the party divides. That makes one feel that there must be a common template of misstatement for all of them. Rahul Gandhi has declared that his farm house and farmland of about five acres near Delhi is worth only Rs 9.8 lakhs. Deve Gowda still keeps his 1984 car. There is no explanation for the sudden jump in wealth worth many crores between elections. The known sources of income of most politicians through their careers might not explain their total wealth as declared now, even if the declarations are correct. The idea behind the mandatory declaration of assets was to enable the voters get full financial information about their candidates. The importance of this cannot be overstated in times of mounting corruption. But the requirement has become so formal and the exercise so farcical that that very low credibility is attached to the affidavits now. No candidate can be disqualified at the time of scrutiny of the nominations for filing wrong and misleading information about their wealth. There are practical problems in scrutinising the affidavits in a few days, but the prospect of disqualification later does not seem to deter many candidates. The dishonesty writ large in the affidavits of many candidates makes people feel that others too are dishonest.
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