Political Parties Under RTI – A Great Time Pass

In other news, I am told, Central Information Commission has dropped a bomb. The effect of the bomb spreads across all political parties. In a jovial outburst, the CIC has directed the major six political parties to come within the ambit of Right To Information act, 2005 and has given six weeks to fall in line with their directive.


That is quite an ask for most of our political parties, looking at the manner they manage themselves. It was all but expected to have a voice of dissent among our political parties against any such directives for obvious reasons. No wonder, it has to be Congress that opposed the move the very next second CIC’s bulletin come to the public domain. Followed soon was Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party. Another expected outcry. Ditto is the case with CPI (M) but their outcry was far less expected since I genuinely believe, none of their politburo members have anything fishy to hide. The only party that seems gracefully accepting the proposition is the BJP. This again was not on the expected lines since I am sure, a transparency within might just tumble out as many skeletons from BJP’s closet as for any other political party of India. BJP’s unconditional welcome could hence be an attempt to project themselves as ‘A party with a difference’, more so when we are less than a year away from the general elections. Let the skeletons take care of themselves could be the idea as exhibiting oneself clean like Dettol in the season of scams could have bigger advantages than the combined reparations that all the tumbling skeletons could bring in. A calculative risk on the part of BJP may be.

How the political parties are reacting to the news is not the point. Let the political parties calculate their profit-loss statement the way they want. The question that kicks my mind is why I see the kind of jubilation among a section of people? Is there really anything in the ruling to be so much delighted about? For those who believe, this directive is as path breaking as installing the first lady president in the form of Pratibha Patil then I would urge them to get out of this post right about now. Because for me, as an individual, the said ruling will create more mess than cleaning the existing ones. If at all anything, the directive will bring about a lot of information into the public domain which most of us never care about or to say the least, are as useful for us as the NAC is for an effective governance.

For starters, the management of all (I mean it) political parties is a black box for most of us. Unless you are one Barkha Dutt types with a career vision of a power broker at some point in your life cycle, the internal management of political parties in India is not that relevant even. We know how our political parties are structured and a conservative guess would tell us that it is only rot that we will find if we try to dig within. Almost all major parties are democratic for the heck of it where as it is more like a dynasty with most of the time a family ruling over it. Be it Congress, SP, BJD, DMK, TDP, JD(S), SAD, Sivsena and many more. They are nothing but dynasties cleverly masqueraded as democratic establishments. No wonder, who would be calling the shots in their respective parties. Can we ever imagine the sycophants of Congress even showing displeasure, let alone disobeying, any orders of the queen or the youth icon? Same is the case with DMK. Have you ever heard anyone opposing Karunanidhi or Bal Thakray even for their craziest of decision making? Can anyone override the decisions of the Badals or Naveen Pattnaik? Simply No. This is how our political parties are run. With an individual or a family at the top making all the decisions while the rest are there for making up the numbers. In a crowd of such pathetic coward bootlickers and jokers, do we really see anything worthy and interesting coming out through RTI? I doubt.

Now for those who believe, through this you can get to know where Mrs. Gandhi got treated for her cancer or where Rahul Baba flies out every month then let me assure you; you are in for the disappointment of your life. As per a clause in the RTI act, political parties can block any such spicy information by terming them as classified personal details. And to be honest, we don’t have any authority to know where Sonia Gandhi gets treated as long as the money spent on this visage is not paid by the exchequer. And yes, you are correct, since the Congress party has already clarified that the last penny spent on Mrs. Gandhi is from Congress coffers; we don’t have much of a debate there. And, for a change I do believe the Congress party here for a simple reason. When they have already looted and stuffed enough in lakhs of crores, why on earth they would consume peanuts of public money for their queen’s personal use? That too when there is a possibility of their queen’s image getting maligned in the event of a routine audit carried out by their opponents when they come to power. Same is the case with heir-apparent’s foreign trips. Do you think Rahul Gandhi needs your money to visit USA to meet his Colombian girlfriend or watch a game of NBA? You must be kidding, if you believe he does. For the sundry luxury of the present dynasty and perhaps the next seven generations to come, Congress party has accumulated enough public money via rampant looting a long time back; be rest assured.

So I am back to the question I started with. What we are going to achieve by this RTI? Know the minutes of meeting of each political party? Even if we get hold of them, I am sure those details would make a horrifying reading. Only thing that can happen going forward is the fresh opportunities the Arnav Goswamis of the world will get to scream for the smallest missing point in the minutes of the meeting. And looking at our political parties, how grossly the act would be misused is anybody’s guess. While we might not gain anything, we might end up hiring more people to just manage the whole RTI nonsense. As it is a good 12% of our government officers consume their entire time in replying to various information asked under RTI. If that is not enough, the whole thing could be a bad fodder for our media since they would conveniently skip more important news while busy airing the internal mismanagement of one political party or the other, 24/7 * 365. For heavens, I don’t want to hear Arnav screaming – ‘The nation wants to know why Rajnath Singh noted down the minutes, when it should be the responsibility of any of the general secretaries of the party’. Trust me, that would be for sure another TV Screen breaking moment; much like the post Eden Garden’s semifinal loss to Sri Lanka scenario.

On the contrary, why the queen has to travel to USA for treatment? Don’t we have qualified doctors or facilities here at home? But I thought the ‘Bharat Nirman’ advertisements tell an entirely different story. I was with an impression that now Barrack Obama might come to India instead, for his treatment once he is through any of the BN adds. Sigh!! So disappointed to say the least.