Crime and Politics: India’s Criminal Politicians

 

 

 The number of political parties in India is increasing every day. As per Election Commission of India, there are currently 2858 registered parties in India, of which eight are national parties, having a presence in more than one region, and 54 state level organizations. The rest of the 2000- odd parties are deemed to be ‘Unrecognized,’ meaning that they just exist mostly on paper.

 ‘The share of MPs (member of parliament) with criminal and serious criminal cases increased to 43% and 29%, according to an analysis of 539 winners in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. To be sure, at least some of such cases are politically motivated,’ reported Hindustan Times, New Delhi edition, dated August 11, 2021.

 

Among the elections, the 2019 Lok Sabha polls saw the participation of 67 MPs who had declared criminal charges against them, followed by Bihar assembly elections 2020 where 54 MLAs having declared criminal charges contested.

In 2019, while 39% of the BJP’s winning candidates had criminal cases against them, this number was 57% for the Congress, 43% for the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and 41% for the All India Trinamool Congress. In the Assembly elections in the state of Bihar in 2020, 68% of elected candidates had a criminal history, with a majority of them accused of serious crimes. 

Pappu Yadav- a gangster turned politician from Bihar, with several criminal cases against him won the parliamentary elections five times and assembly election once. In 2009, the Patna High Court banned him from contesting the Lok Sabha elections as he was convicted in a murder case. In 2014 elections, he was elected and made his re-entry to the parliament after years of imprisonment.

On an average, the criminal cases faced by MPs, against whom charges have been framed, have been pending since 7 years while those faced by MLAs have been pending since 6 years.  As on 2020, 24 Lok Sabha MPs have a total of 43 criminal cases pending against them for 10 years or more and 111 sitting MLAs have a total of 315 criminal cases pending against them for 10 years or more.

According to IndiaSpend, a data-driven journalism website, as on September 2018, only six percent of criminal cases against India’s MPs and MLAs ended in conviction, as per data submitted by the central government to the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court, on its part, in two separate judgements, in August 10, 2021 asked the political parties to publish pending criminal cases against their candidates within 48 hours of their nomination for the ticket, reiterating and strengthening its 2020 order. The court further ruled that states can’t withdraw cases against MPs and MLAs without the corresponding high court’s consent, something that has become increasingly common in recent times.

Under Section 8 of the RP Act, 1951, if convicted, the MPs and MLAs will face disqualification from being Member of the Parliament as well as Member of the Legislative Assembly or Member of the Legislative Council of the state.

Sub-sections (1), (2) and (3) of Section 8 of the Act provide that a person convicted of an offense mentioned in any of these sub-sections shall stand disqualified from the date of conviction and shall continue to be disqualified for a further period of six years since his/her release.

The offenses listed under these sub-sections include murder, rape, dacoity, robbery, kidnapping, crimes against women, bribery, corruption, money laundering and many more.

 

One of the survey reports concludes that people intentionally support and elect a tainted person with a criminal record as they perceive these so called mass leaders as their ‘Robin Hoods’. These politicians use their criminal record as a badge of honour to convince people that they can protect their interests by ensuring access to all government benefits and social insurance. These criminal politicians also use the language, caste, religion and other emotional issues to convince the voters. Especially in rural areas, people don’t care much about the criminal background of the candidate. If they feel that the candidate will get their things done and will make their life simpler, they just vote.

Political parties also prefer candidates with criminal backgrounds as they are ready to finance their election cost without depending on the parties’ resources. Criminals aspire to become politicians to delay, evade or derail prosecution and also to enjoy the benefits of status, prestige and power. In the words of the Supreme Court of India, the slow motion of justice “becomes much slower when politically powerful or high and influential persons figure as accused.” Criminality thrives in politics because of prolonged trials in courts and abysmally lower conviction rates.

Holding that the criminalization of politics is an “extremely disastrous and lamentable situation,” the five-judge constitution bench headed by erstwhile Chief Justice Dipak Misra said this “unsettlingly increasing trend” has the propensity to “send shivers down the spine of a constitutional democracy.” The court added that the criminalization of politics was “not incurable” but the issue was required to be dealt with soon before it becomes “fatal” to democracy.

“Our Indian democracy has seen a steady increase in the level of criminalization creeping into Indian polity. This tends to disrupt constitutional ethos, strikes at the root of democratic form of government, and makes citizens suffer,” the judges added.

 

A major reason why corruption is so entrenched and deep rooted in the system is, because there is no stringent law that requires political parties to revoke and cancel the membership of tainted candidates.

“Unless the Parliament amends Article 102 of the Constitution and provisions of the People’s Act to disqualify unworthy candidates, nothing will change,” admits High Court lawyer and activist Sapna Narang. “However, chances of the government doing so are slim because tainted candidates have clout and come with a ‘winnability’ factor. In fact so relaxed are the rules that currently, even candidates jailed for less than two years can contest elections!”

“It is imperative that the Parliament evolve a mechanism to keep criminal politicians out of the political fray and the people continue their struggle for the decriminalization of politics at every level of government. Else soon, India’s claim to be the world’s largest democracy will ring hollow,” says Jhaveri, political analyst.

Will the realization happen in the second populous country where the wily political class, with vast differences in ideology, who would rather support each other on issues concerning their own survival than the overall interest of the country?

There seems to be no hope. I desperately wish to be proved wrong.

#politicians #criminalization #elections #crimepays #electioncommission #supremecourt 

 

Dr. C K Sreedharan

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