Expect To Defeat BJP Despite Empty Coffers, Says Congress’ Shashi Tharoor

The Congress party’s cash shortage won’t get in the way of its electoral success come 2019. That’s the word from senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor who said that if Indian voters want “the kind of politics and principles the Congress represents they will have to help out”.

India’s oldest political party has run out of money, Bloomberg said in a recent report. Funds to run party offices have not been transferred for the last five months and a candidate in the recent Karnataka elections had to be crowd funded. The party has also called for contributions and donations on their official Twitter handle.

“It is true the ruling party has sucked up most of the financing,” Tharoor said in an interview with BloombergQuint. And fighting elections on a national scale needs the kind of funding the party no longer has, he added.

Funding for the Congress has consistently declined since the 2014 general elections, according to data from advocacy group Association for Democratic Reforms. A report by the Centre of Media Studies has estimated that up to Rs 10,500 crore was spent in the Karnataka elections and about Rs 50,000 crore will be spent in the next general elections.

But “money alone does not buy votes”, said Tharoor, claiming that India’s largest opposition party has every chance of victory despite being strapped for funds.