Profile of Indian MPs and voters
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: March 24, 2014 -
‘M’ for ‘Murder’ and ‘P’ for ‘Politics’. This was the acronym used for MP (Member of Parliament) in a series of write-ups published some years back in connection with the campaign of Next Generation Electoral Reforms initiated to fight against corruption and criminalization of politics in India, whose graph, unfortunately, has only gone up over the years.
And it appears that regardless of what the political parties may say, this twin problems of corruption and criminalization of politics is only here to stay, whether we like it or not.
In the latest survey conducted jointly by the National Election Watch and the Association of Democratic Reforms, it has been revealed that one out of every three candidates fielded by the two major political parties namely BJP and Congress for the upcoming nine-phase 16th Lok Sabha election faced criminal charges against them.
This accounts for 30 percent of the total candidates announced so far, and this is surely not going to be the end of the picture as the conclusion has been arrived at only from studying 280 affidavits submitted by 469 candidates of the two National parties for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections so far and the survey excluded candidates of other National and regional political parties.
Again, of this 30 percent, 13 percent are faced with serious charges like murder, rape and kidnapping.
In the current 15th Lok Sabha, there are 158 elected MPs with criminal cases pending against them, Out of these, there are 74 MPs having serious charges against them.
The list of ‘criminal’ MPs in Indian Parliament is only a notch ahead from the figure of 128 MPs faced with criminal charges with 55 of them with serious charges in the 14th Lok Sabha.
The rising number of criminals entering politics and getting elected should be a serious concern to all, specially the people who elect them as their representatives for the simple reason that a criminal who is motivated by wrong reasons could not be expected to make any positive contributions to the society.
On the contrary, they could only breed a sense of futility and frustrations among the officials, which in turn could lead to a cycle of corruption in the society.
It is not lack of good people joining politics, but good voters that has led to increase in the twin problems of criminalization of politics and corruption in the Indian electoral system.
So, whether any campaign for cleansing the present the electoral system in the country or the measures taken up by the Election Commission of India helps in closing the door to corruption and criminalization of politics, voters have a pivotal role to play in cleansing the electoral system.
After all, as French diplomat and philosopher had once stated, ‘Every country gets the Government it deserves’, we only hope, Indian voters including those in Manipur remember this when they go to cast their precious vote to elect their MPs this time.
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