Criminalising politics
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: November 28, 2013 -
'Criminalization of politics', is a phrase which is said to be have been used for the first time in India in a formal document prepared by NN Vohra, the then Union Home Secretary in 1993, when he headed a committee set up by the Government to take stock of all available information about the activities of crime Syndicates/Mafia organisations which had developed links with and were being protected by the Government functionaries and political personalities.
After the report of this Committee, which has been come to be known as Vohra Committee Report, was tabled, various attempts have been made to reduce criminalisation of politics in the biggest democracy of the world.
One such effort was the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) which was field in the Delhi High Court in 1999 to make it mandatory for the candidates contesting elections to Parliament and State Assemblies to disclose their criminal, financial, and educational antecedents.
After several rounds of court appeals and challenges at various legal outlets imaginable, the PIL finally saw the light of the day when the Supreme Court struck down the amendment proposed by an all party meeting to the Representation of People Act (RP Act) as 'unconstitutional' and 'null and void'.
And that is how the self-sworn affidavits of the contesting candidates, that we know today, came into being.
However, self-declaration of criminal, financial and educational records by the contesting candidates has not reduced criminalization of politics in India in any lesser degree over the years.
On the contrary, it has only increased and become almost a status symbol for the contesting candidates to have some sort of criminal antecedents to boast around.
An analysis of the self-sworn affidavits submitted by the candidates in the fray for the polling to the 70-member Delhi assembly due on December 4 next has shown how there has been an increase in the number of candidates with criminal cases with BJP topping the chart with 31 out of its 68 candidates (46 percent) fielded, followed by Congress with 15 'criminal' candidates out of 70 (21 percent), Bahujan Samaj Party with 12 out of 67 (18 percent), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) with 5 out of 70 candidates (7 percent).
The other 64 candidates who have declared criminal charges against them are from smaller parties or are Independents.
On the other hand, the assets of 66 sitting Congress MLAs, who are trying for re-contest in the election, have shown a whooping 259 percent rise on an average in the last five years.
From all these analyses, it is as clear as daylight that crime and money have already found a solid foothold in the Indian electoral politics, and no amount of high sounding talks by political leaders from public platform on curbing criminal elements from entering into politics is not going to solve the problem, when they themselves are giving tickets to the aspiring candidates with criminal background or keeping their eyes shut to the looting of public fund, or sharing the booty.
They are are all the same; regardless of under which flags they stand.
So, for a clean politics, there is an urgent need to shift the focus of the campaign with greater force towards the electorates to make them take decide what kind of representatives they want before exercising their precious rights of casting votes.
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