The big spender wins again.
By Vinayak
The Hindu, one of South India's most popular newspapers, reports that the Congress ended up spending Rs. 125,43,33,247 (or $27.9 million using exchange rate calculation) on the general election held earlier this year. This is the highest any party has ever spent (I adjusted for inflation and checked... its true) on an election campaign.
That kind of money is huge... the story goes on to list out the various cost breakups, and reading about these wastages just becomes a more disconcerting ordeal.
While few argue the almost unitary correlation between high spending and election results, I'm beginning to have my doubts on Democracy:
1. It costs too much.
2. The money comes from sources that are too few in number.
3. Refer to point 1.
4. Refer to point 3.
What worries me is that this trend is especially dangerous for a country like India, where such large amounts have far higher utility spent elsewhere. Using my own 'Big Mac' adjustment, I reckon that the money spent could well be worth $97 million dollars (A Big Mac costs about 54 rupees in India, and about $4 in the US). That is *still* one HECK of a lot of money.
You can read the original story here.
Update:
Yazad was kind enough to point out that I had got my Big Mac prices wrong. He makes the point that its not a Big Mac but a 'Maharaja Mac', and costs Rs. 54 Rupees not Rs. 20. I have corrected the values in the post. He also makes another point in his comment which I will probably write about in a seperate post. I still stick with the "one heck of a lot of money" statement though :-)
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