Less than a Million!

Our Emperor tells us that he spent less than a million Rupees to win the election from Chitwan and his opponent also managed to keep his expenses at the same range. If all of our politicians followed our Emperor's frugal spending habits then standing up for elections would not be expensive and political parties would not have to hand out tickets to byaparis. 

Then we could have hundreds of Lal Babu Pandits standing up for election rather than hundreds of slimy contractors and shady con artists playing politics in this country.

Let us congratulate both of their cadres for not asking for fuel, khaja and other expenses during their election campaigns to keep the cost down for their candidates.  Yes, we need such cadres to help politicians to not waste millions of Rupees on election campaigns. 

We need cadres who will bring their own thermos of milk tea, sel-roti and even a bottle or two of Petrol from their own home. And our candidates should not waste money on loud speakers, vehicles, pamphlets and banners. Just SMS your vision to potential voters and maybe in the future be allowed to raise funds for their campaigns through SMS as well. 

I think that would be more transparent and of course, there should be a limit on how much one can send from one's phone or else, this country will run out of SIM cards during elections.

If our politicians can keep their cost down then they won't have to ask for donations from byaparis, contractors and other con artists. But of course, when you are a contractor yourself, you really don’t' have to ask for campaign donations. You can foot the bill yourself. But if you are a career politician then you will also ask for contributions for your election campaigns, party conventions, your son's wedding and for everything else.

It doesn't matter if our politicians have amassed billions of Rupees through kickbacks, they will not hesitate to ask our fake-VAT bill byaparis for more come election time. After all, our greedy parasites want more and more, both from the state and our byaparis. And byaparis are more than happy to dole out the dough so that they can continue to evade taxes and make themselves and our civil servants and netas richer while the State goes broke.

If we were to do a poll today, 99% of the folks would find it hard to believe that our Emperor spent only Rs 994,542 in Chitwan. His opponent , a contractor also spent a few thousand Rupees less than our Emperor.  If we were to do the math then our Emperor spent about Rs 20 per voter in Chitwan. So does that mean a cup of tea is enough to swing votes in Nepali politics? Not really but that is what our Emperor expects us to believe.

If we were to believe our Emperor then it is much cheaper to run for the seat to the federal parliament than ward chairperson or even for Mayor. We hear that our didi became the Mayor of Bharatpur after spending Karods of Rupees. Nobody knows the exact figure but hydropower experts tell us that you could build a 2 to 3 MW project with that kind of money!

Even the guy who became the ward chairperson in my ward tells me that that he had to spend more than a million Rupees to win a thousand votes. Either my ward chairperson is lying or our Emperor received free tea and masu bhat for his cadres from the local chiya pasals and bhojan grihas!

Well, we really won't know the exact figure because our politicians and political parties do not submit their financial details on time and even if they do, it's mostly fake bills and the amount mentioned  does not match with the number of vehicles and cadres used for their ghar-dailo karyakarams. 

Even if a politician has like 50 muscled mundreys and another 50 hardworking cadres running around, it would cost at least, if you find the cheapest place around,  five hundred Rupees to provide them with masu bhat twice a day and  a plate of momo and chiya and aloo in the morning.  

I think our politicians will spend a million in chiya kharcha alone during election campaigns. Something really doesn’t add up but who are we to accuse our Emperor for fudging his bills?

Our Emperor's friend, Mr. Sumargi is in the news lately. He doesn’t seem to like the media folks snooping around his finances. Yes, Mr. Sumargi should be left alone. He should be applauded, celebrated and given the President's medal or something close to that for his success.

Let us not blame him or accuse him of misdeeds just because he happens to be close to our Emperor. Sumargi must have rich foreign friends around the world who are willing to invest in his projects. Yes, we need folks like Sumargi in this country. We need con artists who get close to our honest netas and corrupt them. 

We need byaparis who will work with foreign agents to influence our netas and take this country down the drain. After all, New Nepal is a fun place for our byaparis and chor netas. For the rest of us, we just have to put up with the corruption in this land and exhaust our savings to be able to afford two decent meals per day.

Guffadi is a grumpy old man who blogs at guffadi.blogspot.com. You may contact him at maguffadi@gmail.com