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| Babus collect funds for political parties | | Anantnag by-polls | | Hyder Ali
Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, June 21: Even as Anantnag constituency is scheduled to go for by-polls on June 22, rumor mills are rife that some of the officials collected funds on behalf of contesting political parties.
A coterie of officials, loyal to some political parties, particularly the ruling ones, are being accused of having collected millions as party funds to retain plum postings and goodwill of their masters, in a more powerful way.
Sources said in one such case, a coterie of officials including middle-rung, arranged around Rs one crore cash for a political party.
Party insiders said "loyalist" officials were only asked to rope in prospective funders from the Kashmir Inc and introduce them to the party leadership. "But what happened was that these officials ended up themselves having closed-door negotiations with the business families. They themselves collected money from the businessmen and handed it over to party leadership," said a party insider, asking not to be named.
Some politicians said, as per the "protocol", the officials loyal to the political parties are bound to only introduce prospective funders, while subsequently negotiations over donations are held by the party leaders themselves.
"But it has been for the first time in the history of Kashmir that Babus themselves collected money in cash," insiders said.
Officials at Civil Secretariat believe that a coterie of officials held negotiations with some leading business houses in Kashmir, in a bid to persuade them to fund a particular political party.
The coterie assured the business families that their interests would be taken care of in the coming months. "One of the business houses eyes to bag a mega contract to run a government facility whereas others have issues over grant of building permissions on forestland... All such demands have been verbally accepted by the middlemen Babus," quipped a group of officials in the Civil Secretariat.
While some upright officials said they have no issues if their colleagues act as "brokers for political parties", but they have a valid point. "The intelligence agencies must at least investigate how much party fund was collected by these broker officials and how much did actually reach the party leadership because what we feel is that they must have grabbed good commission in the deals," said a senior official.
The rumors of officials acting as brokers have ripened at a time when opposition Congress and National Conference have accused the ruling PDP-BJP alliance of resorting to "vote for money". Just a few days ago, a major political storm hit the state government after police seized Rs 58.8 lakh cash from a car in the poll-bound Anantnag constituency.
On June 16, pandemonium rocked Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly when opposition Congress and National Conference created ruckus alleging that the cash was meant for buying votes.
Authorities, however, were quick to rubbish the charge claiming that the cash belonged to bank and it was being transported to be deposited in the currency chest when the vehicle was stopped by police naka party at Janglat Mandi. |
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