Elections in Andhra Pradesh have become a very costly affair. Even the reserved constituencies are costly and not a common man can think of contesting the elections.
Money and liquor dominate the electioneering and the candidates, or the parties have, over the years, started money and liquor distribution to influence the voters – to say in other words, to buy votes.
Each MLA candidates spends anything not less than Rs 30 crore for the Assembly election and the MP candidate spends Rs 100 to Rs 200 crore for the Parliament Constituency.
Even the posts like MLC and Rajya Sabha, in that ratio, have become a costly affair and only leading industrialists. Thus, elections in the Telugu States have become a thing of the contractors and industrialists.
Shockingly, even the SC and ST reserved constituencies in the Assembly and Parliament elections in the Telugu States see flow of money and liquor.
With more officers from the government services joining the election race every time, these constituencies too have gone out of the hands of the common man.
Leaders like Yalamanchili Sivaji and Vadde Sobhanandreeswara Rao, besides several others, have openly admitted that the elections in the Telugu States have become costlier and they are not in their reach.
In this backdrop, the AP government had introduced a new law to curb flow of money and liquor and thus trying to bring down the election expenditure. The law is now enforced for the local bodies for the good of the common people.
The decision to prevent money and liquor in elections is a welcome move by the Jagan Mohan Reddy government.
It has already started scaring the candidates and had raised the hopes of common people to think of contesting the local body elections.
The aspirants for the ward, panchayat, mandal parishad, zilla parishad and municipalities are now increasing with the ordinary people staking claim.
Quite interestingly, the rich politicians are not showing interest due to fear of being caught for distribution of money and liquor.
In any way, keeping political interests aside, people are welcoming these reforms at the grassroots and it is an advantage Jagan Mohan Reddy. It is also said as a good beginning indeed towards total election reforms in the State.
The days of common man contesting the elections, which was there till 1980s, should come back, is what many people feel and aspire.