There really haven’t been too many instances where corruption as an issue has affected an electoral outcome.
The co-author has been travelling across India for the last few months. During the course of this India to Bharat voyage, he spent a few days in Bihar. What he discovered there did not come as a surprise: the convicted “criminal” Lalu Prasad Yadav is still an enormously popular man and leader. Arguably, the only other leader that comes close to his popularity is his own son Tejashwi Yadav. The co-author also spent a few days in southern Tamil Nadu: he found wistful and nostalgic reverence for another convicted “criminal”, J. Jayalalithaa. Ordinary folks in both the states had two stock responses when asked about the perceived corruption of the two former Chief Ministers. The first came from die hard supporters who said “their” leaders were victims of conspiracy. The second response was that voters ignored the corruption charges because the leaders had done “so much” for their communities and for ethnic pride.
Apart from tracking elections through surveys and opinion polls for almost three decades, the lead author too has travelled extensively across India since the 1990s. When it comes to Bihar and Tamil Nadu, both the CVoter opinion polls and his personal experience of interacting with people made it clear that voters in India have a peculiar tendency to either “overlook” corruption charges against their favourite leaders or say that the public has punished them once and forgiven them. Look at the situation at the moment. Opposition parties were up in arms against what they allege is the “vendetta” politics of the ruling NDA regime when Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren was arrested on charges of corruption. They lambasted the NDA regime for “misusing” central agencies like the Enforcement Directorate, the Central Bureau of Investigation and Income Tax Department to target, harass and intimidate opposition parties and leaders.
This erupted into a huge controversy when the Enforcement Directorate arrested Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The “event” was “bigger” than the arrest of Hemant Soren because it was Delhi-based where the “national” media resides and because the Aam Aadmi Party has rich experience of organising protests and indulging in theatrics. Across television channels and in other media platforms, there is fierce debate if Kejriwal and AAP are corrupt or victims of a vindictive NDA regime. This war of words will go on even beyond 4 June 2024, when results of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections are announced. That is because Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to have dug in his heels and is announcing at election rallies that all corrupt politicians will be behind bars. The question is: do voters make perceived or alleged corruption a serious factor when making up their minds before polling day? CVoter surveys and opinion polls do not suggest that. The opinion poll conducted by CVoter on the eve of Lok Sabha elections indicates that while corruption is an issue that engages the mind of the voters, it ranks way below other issues like unemployment, inflation, Article 370 abrogating and Ram Mandir.
Corruption has been a topic of fierce debate during electoral cycles since the 1970s. But there really haven’t been too many instances where corruption as an issue has affected an electoral outcome. Let’s again look at how voters reacted to corruption charges against two Chief Ministers Lalu Prasad Yadav and J. Jayalalithaa. In 1997, when Lalu was arrested for the “fodder scam”, he made it a grand spectacle. Not only did he install his wife Rabri Devi as the Chief Minister, but also seemed to rule Bihar from jail. For puritans and anti corruption crusaders, this was an unforgivable display of brazen corruption. The voters in Bihar didn’t think so and Lalu’s party, the RJD “led” by Rabri Devi won a thumping majority in the 2000 Assembly elections in Bihar. Since then, Lalu has been convicted in multiple cases. But the RJD vote base is intact and there are very high chances that his son Tejashwi, who himself faces corruption charges, will become Chief Minister after the Assembly elections in 2025. In 2014, a court in Bangalore convicted Jayalalithaa on charges of corruption and sentenced her to four years of imprisonment. Assembly elections were due in 2016. Led by the DMK, an array of opposition parties formed an alliance to dethrone Jayalalithaa as Chief Minister in the 2016 elections. Her conviction and imprisonment on corruption charges became an election “issue”. But the voters of Tamil Nadu were not impressed. Jayalalithaa won a thumping mandate yet again. There is not much similarity between Bihar and Tamil Nadu when it comes to socio economic conditions and polity. Yet, voters in both states chose to ignore corruption charges against their “popular” leaders.
The authors could provide many such examples. Perhaps one of the more colourful ones is Sukh Ram, who was Union Telecom Minister when mobile phones were launched in India in 1995. Investigative agencies found crores of rupees stashed in cash at his official residence. His “perceived” corruption became the talk of town. Yet, Sukh Ram remained enormously popular as a leader in Himachal and voters would openly say they overlook the corruption allegations because “their” leaders had “done much good work” for the state and its people. There are multiple allegations of corruption against a host of senior leaders of the Trinamool Congress with accusations that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee shields the corrupt. Yet, she remains incredibly popular. When B.S. Yediyurappa faced charges of corruption as Chief Minister of Karnataka, the BJP removed him and crashed to a humiliating defeat in the 2013 Assembly elections after Yediyurappa revolted and formed his own party. When the BJP came back to power, it was Yediyurappa who led from the front. Despite serious allegations of corruption, the Congress-NCP “alliance” won three consecutive Assembly election mandates between 1999 and 2014.
Finally, let’s look at two electoral outcomes that are perceived as the ones where corruption was a major issue. The first is the 1989 Lok Sabha elections where the “Bofors scam” seems to have played a big role. Did it? To some extent yes. But the authors think Rajiv Gandhi had already lost the Hindu vote in the Hindi heartland via Shah Bano and the Muslim vote by opening the locks of the disputed structure at Ayodhya. Add large dollops of arrogance and the result was inevitable. Then comes the 2014 verdict that seems to have been influenced by a series of scams like Commonwealth, 2G and Coalgate. They display a role. But again, the authors think two other factors played a bigger role. The first was severe economic distress. The second was the perceived “anti-Hindu” stance of the Congress.
Yashwant Deshmukh is Founder & Editor in Chief of CVoter Foundation and Sutanu Guru is Executive Director.