Pathways of money: insights from the 2017 Gujarat assembly election

ABSTRACT A paucity of understanding of the pathways through which money flows during elections renders all discussion on campaign finance conjectural and unpersuasive. Drawing on qualitative evidence from two assembly constituencies in Gujarat, the paper seeks to understand the “opaque” and “enigmatic” ways in which parties and candidates mobilize campaign finance and the mechanisms through which money and other goodies get channeled into the electoral process. Further, the paper also attempts to compute realistic estimates of campaign expenses under critical campaign heads and highlights the ways in which candidates bypass official spending limits set by the Election Commission. The paper’s findings speak to some of the core themes in the burgeoning scholarship on electoral integrity and political economy of campaign finance in the world’s emerging democracies.