What matters to the 1.237 billion people of India from the political establishment? Probably they want jobs for unemployed, middle class friendly policies, infrastructure development, affordable electricity, sufficient water, quality schools, and efficient hospitals. What the Indian people don’t want is corruption, donations, and inflation. The point is, when all the political parties can clearly see these unfulfilled expectations of people, why they don’t take actions? Whether the right wing pro Hindu Bhartiya Janata Party or self proclaimed secular Indian National Congress, performance wise both have disappointed the common Indian people in their respective tenure.
Congress and BJP are the two largest political parties in India. Corporate support any political establishment whoever favors their business policies whether the Congress or the BJP, in spite of their opposing ideologies. Indian corporate houses donate huge amount of money to support their favoring political party. However corporate houses are religiously neutral and don’t offer the support on religious ground. The main objective of corporate companies is to run their business smoothly. Corporate houses are not only offering the monetary support to their favorite political party but also offering the technology and strategies, without being even aligned to their political ideologies.
Tata enterprise is among the dozens of other Indian companies donating hugely into political campaigns. Association of democratic reforms (ADR) has estimated that the Congress and BJP had collectively raised about 4.13 billion rupees ($66 million) from the start of 2004 through 2012, the vast majority of which, 3.64 billion rupees ($58 million) or about 88%, came from Indian corporations. Indian political parties rely heavily on corporate firms for funding.
However, the Indian political establishment is neither business friendly nor encourages the new business or individual aspiring entrepreneurs. Indian administration has widespread corruption and variable regulations, making the trade very difficult. Still the corporate sector donates to political parties.
All the corporate houses try to be in the good books of political establishment. Bharti Enterprises Tata Sons, engineering company Larsen & Toubro, consumer electronics giant Videcon Industries Limited and car-maker Mahindra & Mahindra were among the few high fliers who donated millions of rupees to the political parties in election campaigns.
Arvind Kejriwal led Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) win in Delhi Lok Sabha election influenced many educated middle class people and they started looking at Indian politics positively. This party has now made a decision to go national and claims to be honest and fair in all their dealings. It is anticipated that huge amount of corporate donations will come to AAP as they already engaged many ex corporate representatives in the party.
