Putting politicians in their place

The Madras High Court observed that public funds cannot be misused for the personal interest of any politician

The Madras High Court has rightly deprecated the use of photographs of political functionaries, including that of the chief minister, on school bags and stationery. The order was passed on a PIL which sought a direction to the Tamil Nadu government to continue distributing the unused stock of school bags, stationery and textbooks which had photographs of former chief ministers E Palanisamy and J Jayalalithaa. However, even before this direction, the M K Stalin government had announced that while the existing stock will be issued to students, the practice of printing photographs on school material would henceforth be dispensed with — a decision that won the praise of the court. This led to a saving of Rs 13 crore and Stalin deserves to be complimented for acting like a statesman though his decision was strongly opposed by his party men considering the acrimonious relationship between the ruling DMK and the previous AIADMK government. Some time ago, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath too had gone ahead with the distribution of school bags that had pictures of his predecessor Akhilesh Yadav. However, laptops meant for students were recalled and the screensavers with photographs of Yadav were replaced with that of Yogi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Abhorring the practice of affixing photos of politicians on material meant for school children who did not even have the right to vote, the court observed that public funds cannot be misused for the personal interest of any politician. To Stalin’s credit, he has also done away with the practice of printing the chief minister’s photographs on certificates awarded to best teachers on Teacher’s Day or on Covid food kits distributed to households.

While politicians have every right to seek publicity when they invest their own funds, misusing the taxpayer’s money for their personal aggrandisement has become a norm in the country today. An RTI query has revealed that the Modi government spent a whopping Rs 5,000 crore on publicity since 2014, while states too would not be far behind. The penchant for self-promotion among our political class is such that while it is common to find photographs of the prime minister and chief ministers staring out of advertisements taking personal credit for works executed through public funds, even Covid-19 vaccination certificates have not been spared from this malaise. The Madras High Court has set the ball rolling and considering that politicians will not on their own put an end to this trend, one would look up to the judiciary to rein them in at least when it comes to material supplied to school children.