Mute Spectator : Swach Politics
February 18, 2020
Criminalisation in politics has always been a bone of contention in our political eco-system. It has reached a point where candidates with criminal record, money power and the ability to swing the polls in the parties’ favour are given advantage in elections in both the state and the centre. In these circumstances, parties are shunning their moral responsibilities to come up with a clean face and are looking for short sighted electoral victories.
Political and electoral reforms have not been given the importance it required in our diversified political strata. Further, parties look at ways of sabotaging progressive ideas taken up by the Election Commission of India or the Supreme Court or other such interested organisations. On the contrary, every political party shouts to the heights of Himalayas for reforms in electoral politics and the need to shun criminalisation in politics. This double speak of intent and interest clears the air of the level of hypocrisy of our political parties.
To begin with, I am quoting the statements made in the past by the Prime Minister of India, the Aam Aadmi Party and the Supreme Court on the criminalisation of politics. The above three have been selectively chosen as the current Prime Minister is the most powerful in present India, the Aam Aadmi Party for being the only entity to defeat the Modi- Shah duo for three consecutive times and as always the Supreme Court which stands as the guardian of the Constitution of India.
Here goes the statements made by the above three. The Prime Minister in April 2014 said, "Our aim is 'Apradh Mukt Rajneeti.' We need to end the atmosphere of criminalisation of politics that was started and encouraged by Congress." In Feb 2014, the Aam Aadmi Party stated that, "It will make corruption, criminalisation of politics and dynasty politics as its major poll plank in the then Lok Sabha elections" and assured of no room for criminals in politics. In March 2017, the SC said that the most serious problem our country faces is corruption and the extensive criminalisation of politics. In sept 2018, the same Supreme Court on the criminalisation of politics said, "time has come for parliament to keep criminals away".
Intent to Interest
Now let's look at the intent to interest conversion of the current Prime Minister and the Aam Aadmi Party. PM Modi steamrolled almost all media enterprises in justifying the candidature of Pragya Singh Thakur for the seat of Bhopal Lok Sabha constituency. The lady is one of the prime accused in the Malegaon blast case of 2009 and is also better known for her patronisation of Nathuram Godse. Today, she is a Member of Parliament.
The newly elected MLA from Aam Aadmi Party, Amanathullah Khan has a total of 12 criminal cases against him under which 11 cases are of serious nature and has multiple cases pending. The much talked about clean politics of the AAP has also dissolved in the pollution of Delhi which is evidently shown by numbers which we will look later.
What constitutes criminality?
It is important to understand what constitutes criminality in electoral politics under IPC as the entirety of criminalisation of politics lies solely based on it. It includes any crime on which the maximum punishment is of 5 years or more, a non- bailable offence, electoral offence, offence related to loss to the exchequer, offences that are mentioned in the Representation of the People Act (Section 8), offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, crimes against women and crimes related to assault, murder, kidnap and rape-related. Now, let's look at the numbers.
Number's talk
The present parliament has 43% Members of Parliament with pending criminal cases which numbers to 234 MPs and 46% of MPs have criminal records. The 17th Lok Sabha has 29% of its MPs with serious declared criminal cases. As a matter of shame, the ruling party has 116 MPs i.e 39% of their total seats with criminal cases, the opposition Congress party has 29 MPs i.e 57% of their total, Janata Dal (United) has 13 MPs i.e 81% of their total, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) has 10 MPs i.e 43% of their total, Trinamool Congress (TMC) has 9 MPs i.e 41% of their total and so on.
In the recently concluded Delhi elections, there is no difference between these numbers. Out of the 70 MLAs, 43 MLAs i.e 61% MLAs have criminal cases against them, 37 MLAs i.e 57% MLAs have serious criminal cases against them and 9 MLAs i.e 13% MLAs have convict cases against them. The winning party AAP has 38 (61%) out of 62 MLAs with criminal cases. The losing party BJP has 5 (63%) out of 8 MLAs with criminal cases against them.
Supreme Court- the Guardian
The Supreme Court has always stood its ground in the matter of criminalisation of politics. It has shown both "intent and interest" on this issue. The landmark judgement of the Supreme Court delivered on 13 March 2002, upheld the judgement of the Delhi High Court to publish candidate’s vital information as a mandatory to stand elections and declared the ordinance brought in by the sitting government to sabotage the SC ruling as "to be illegal, null and void."
The recent ruling of the SC to declare the criminal records of their candidates within 48 hrs of their selection and to explain why candidates with criminal cases where selected is a welcoming step to clean up the criminalisation of politics. The judgement as quoted in the Hindu says that the candidate’s information on criminal antecedents should be detailed and include the nature of offence, charges framed against him, the court concerned and the case number. Further, the judgement tends to make the political party to explain to the public through its published material how "the qualifications or achievements or merit" of a candidate charged with a crime, impressed it enough to cast aside his background.
Though it's visibly clear that political parties show poor or no intent to clean up the electoral politics of the country, it becomes the responsibility of the SC, ECI and other interested organisations such as ADR to do the job. It is ironic that undertrials and convicts cannot vote in our elections and at the same time a candidate with serious criminal case under IPC can be a representative in both the state and the centre. Hail the rationality of our political parties. Intent and interest do matters.
Youngsters to Youngstars
Another thing that can curb or lower the present level of criminalisation ratio in my opinion is by bringing in the 33% reservation of women in both parliament and legislative assemblies along with additional 7% reservation for youngsters under the age of 35 irrespective of their gender. Thereby, political parties are left only with 60% of seats for other candidates in which they can go for merit based candidature selection and radically reduce the participation of heinous criminals in electoral politics.
In times of youngsters being highly skeptical about the reservation system which they want to do away with and look towards merit based system, this idea may seem to be outlandish. Once the plea for reservation of women is understood, the idea may seem to have a point.
Reservation for youngsters in politics could make tremendous turn around in the current way of politicking. Students who show early interest in political activity and social studies can be nurtured. Graduation in political science and further studies in the subject in the early 20's can truly provide leaders of the future. Along with it, national student political organisations like National Students Union of India (NSUI), All India Students Union (AISU), Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and multiple state students’ organisation can utilise this space for positive career growth rather than the regular rabble rousing that these organisations engage in. This 7% of youngsters can learn from the experience and the knowledge of the remaining 93% and learn the practicality of governance in their own eyes rather than of someone else’s. Once performance becomes the sole matter of contention, then political parties will practically move away from candidates of criminal records to candidates of knowledge, talent and performance records.
JAI HIND.
By Sathish TK
Mute Spectator is the primary series of the blog where we express our thoughts on current affairs.
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