રાજકારણનું ગુનાહિતકરણ–
આવી ભવીષ્યવાણી સાચી પડવાની કેટલી શક્યાતા છે?
" આપણા દેશનો સને ૨૦૨૯–૩૦માં જે વડોપ્રધાન હશે તેણે પોતાની રાજકીય જીવનમાં સૌથી વધારે ગુનાહિત કૃત્યો કર્યા હશે " ! ફક્ત અને ફક્ત આજ લાયકાતના આધારે તે વડોપ્રધાન બન્યો હશે. આવું કેવી રીતે શક્ય બને? આ રહ્યા તેના પુરાવા.
સને ફેબ્રુઆરી ૨૦૨૦ દેશની સર્વોચ્ચ અદાલતે આ અંગે જે ચુકાદો આપ્યો છે તેમાં રજુ કરવામાં આવેલા સત્યો નીચે મુજબ છે.
(૧) સને ૨૦૦૪માં સંસદમાં ગુનાહિત કેસોમાં સંડોવાયેલા સંસદોની સંખ્યા ૨૪ ટકા હતી. સને ૨૦૦૯માં તે ૩૦ ટકા, સને ૨૦૧૪માં તે ૩૪ટકા થઇ અને સને ૨૦૧૯માં તે વધીને સીધી ૪૩ ટકા થઇ ગઇ છે. આ ટકાવારીની ઝડપે જો ગુનાહિત કેસોમાં સંડોવાયેલા સાંસંદોની સંખ્યા વધતી રહે તો સને ૨૦૨૯–૩૦ આવા સાંસદોની સંખ્યા ૬૦ ટકા ઉપર થઇ જાય ! આવા બહુમતી સાંસદોના નેતાની ગુનાહિત કૃત્યોની લાયકાતો કેવી અદ્ભુત હોય ! મને ચોક્કસ અનુમાન આવે છે કે તે લાયકાતોમાં પેલા વીવેક દુબેની લાયકાતોતો ફીકી પડી જવાની ! વર્તમાન કેન્દ્રીય અને રાજ્ય સરકારોના નેતાઓના વ્યક્તીત્વનું પૃથ્થ્કરણ કરતાં મને અને તમને શું લાગે છે? કોનો ગ્રાફ આવી લાયકાતોમાં આવતા દસ વર્ષોમાં ખુબજ ઝડપથી વધવાની શક્યતા ધરાવે છે?
(૨) સને ૨૦૨૦ ફેબ્રુઆરીમાં સર્વોચ્ચ અદાલતે રાજકીય પક્ષો અને રાષ્ટ્રીય ચુંટણી પંચને પોતાના ચુકાદામાં સખત રીતે નીચેની શરતોએ પોતાના પક્ષના ઉમેદવારો પસંદ કરવા અને ચુંટણી પંચને તેના પ્રામાણિક રીતે ધ્યાન રાખવાનો હકમ કરેલ છે.
Criminalization of Politics in India [Mains Article]
The need for cleansing politics of criminal influence has been flagged once again. The primary sacrifice at the altar of criminalisation is that of governance, along with transparency and accountability.
By IT's Mains Articles Team
January 16, 2018
Contents
- What is the meaning of Criminalization of Politics?
- Criminalization of Politics in India
- Key Facts
- Reasons
- Suggested measure to curb criminalization of politics
- Conclusion
Criminalization of Politics in India
For IASToppers Mains Articles Archive, Click Here
What is the meaning of Criminalization of Politics?
- Criminalization of Politics means that the criminals entering the politics and contesting elections and even getting elected to the Parliament and state legislature.
- It takes place primarily because of the nexus between the criminals and some of the politicians.
- The criminals need the patronage of politicians occupying public offices to continue with their criminal activities and the politicians need the money and muscle power that the criminals can offer to the politicians to win elections. In course of time, the nexus led the criminals themselves to contest elections.
Criminalization of Politics in India:
- In India, it is not a new phenomenon; the first instances of "booth-capturing" were reported in 1957, and involved hired goons who would mobilize or suppress turnout, or vote on behalf of disenfranchised voters. In return for their work, politicians would protect these criminals from prosecution.
- Until the late 1960s, the re-election rates of incumbents were high. Hence goons were relatively assured of political favours after they helped a politician win the election. As political competition increased, the uncertainty around re-election of incumbent candidates also increased. This led to the entry of criminals in politics in order to maximize control over their own survival and protection.
- Indira Gandhi banning corporate financing of elections in 1969 which eliminated the most important legal source of campaign finance and pushed financing underground.
- At the same time, the costs of contesting elections kept increasing due to a rising population, increasing political competition—the number of political parties increased from 55 in the 1952 general election to 464 in 2014—and the trend of giving freebies for votes.
- This led parties to a competitive search for underground financing, and they played into the hands of criminals and racketeers who had the means to acquire and dispose of large amounts of cash without detection.
- Thus, parties fielded tainted candidates because they could contest an election without becoming a burden on the party's limited coffers.
- Data from the last three general elections shows that the strategy was an electoral success as candidates with criminal cases were three times more likely to win than a "clean" candidate.
Key Facts:
- 17 per cent of 5,380 candidates contesting the Lok Sabha election 2014 have declared criminal charges in their affidavits submitted to the Election Commission; 10 per cent have declared serious criminal charges such as murder and rape charges.
Reasons:
Corruption:
- In every election all parties without exception put up candidates with a criminal background. Even though some of us whine about the decision taken by the parties, the general trend is that these candidates are elected to office.
- By acting in such a manner, we fail to realize that the greatest power that democracy arms the people is to vote incompetent people out of power.
Criminality and Winnability:
- The evident link between criminality and the probability of winning is further reinforced when we look at the winnability of a candidate.
- While any random candidate has one in eight chances of winning a Lok Sabha seat, a candidate facing criminal charges is twice as likely to win as a clean candidate.
Vote Bank:
- The political parties and independent candidates have astronomical expenditure for vote buying and other illegitimate purposes through these criminals or so called goondas. A politician's link with them constituency provides a congenial climate to political crime.
- Majority of the voters are manoeuvrable, purchasable. Most of them are individually timid and collectively coward. To gain their support is easier for the corrupt.
Denial of Justice and Rule of Law:
- The voters, political parties and the law and order machinery of the state are all equally responsible for this. There is very little faith in India in the efficacy of the democratic process in actually delivering good governance. This extends to accepting criminalization of politics as a fact of life.
- Toothless laws against convicted criminals standing for elections further encourage this process. Under current law, only people who have been convicted at least on two counts be debarred from becoming candidates. This leaves the field open for charge sheeted criminals, many of whom are habitual offenders or history-sheeters.
Lack of governance:
- The root of the problem lies in the country's poor governance capacity. On the one hand, India has excessive procedures that allow the bureaucracy to insert itself in the ordinary life of people; on the other hand, it appears woefully understaffed to perform its most crucial functions.
Scarcity of state capacity:
- The scarcity of state capacity is the reason for the public preferring 'strongmen' who can employ the required pulls and triggers to get things done—someone who can enforce contracts, deal with the police when they get into trouble, handle the government babus while procuring a licence or help get admission to a government hospital for treatment.
- Sometimes these politicians align on communal lines as well, promising to serve the interests of a caste or religious community.
- Criminality, far from deterring voters, encourages them because it signals that the candidate is capable of fulfilling his promises and securing the interests of the constituency.
Suggested measure to curb criminalization of politics:
- Bringing greater transparency in campaign financing is going to make it less attractive for political parties to involve gangsters.
- The Election Commission of India (ECI) should have the power to audit the financial accounts of political parties, or political parties' finances should be brought under the right to information (RTI) law.
- Broader governance will have to improve for voters to reduce the reliance on criminal politicians.
- Fast-track courts are necessary because politicians are able to delay the judicial process and serve for decades before prosecution.
- The Election Commission must take adequate measures to break the nexus between the criminals and the politicians.
- The forms prescribed by the Election Commission for candidates disclosing their convictions, cases pending in courts and so on in their nomination papers is a step in the right direction if it applied properly.
Conclusion:
- The need for cleansing politics of criminal influence has been flagged once again.
- The primary sacrifice at the altar of criminalisation is that of governance, along with transparency and accountability.
- Expensive election campaigning favours candidates with strong financial background. Such candidates, when elected, seek to recover their expenses besides securing a corpus for the future election as quickly as possible, especially in the era of coalition governments with tenuous stability.
[Ref: Live Mint, Indian Express, Legal service India, The Wire]
Editorial Notes
[Editorial Notes] Criminalisation of Politics in India
The Supreme Court's February 2020 ruling is a step in the direction that political party and its leadership would have to publicly own up to criminalisation of politics that they had been denying all these years.
By IASToppers
July 17, 2020
Contents:
- Introduction
- SC 2018 ruling
- SC 2020 ruling
- Need for the move
- Way Forward
- Conclusion
Criminalisation of Politics in India
For IASToppers' Editorial Simplified Archive, click here
Introduction:
A February 2020 Supreme Court judgment on criminalisation in politics may have far-reaching consequences for Indian democracy. It will first be implemented in the coming Bihar elections in October 2020. The Court has asked the political parties to state the reasons for such selection, as also as to why other individuals without criminal antecedents could not be selected as candidates.
SC 2018 ruling:
- The 2018 judgment of the bench had made it mandatory for political parties to declare and publish all criminal cases pending against their candidates.
- The 2018 orders stated that:
- each candidate shall submit a sworn affidavit giving financial details and criminal cases;
- each candidate shall inform the political party in writing of criminal cases against him or her;
- the party shall put up on its website and on social media as well as publish in newspapers the names and details of such candidates.
- A petition in SC claimed Election Commission of India had failed to take any steps to ensure the implementation of a 2018 judgment of the bench.
- The petitioners argued that parties were circumventing the judgment by publishing the details of their candidates' criminal background in obscure and limited circulation newspapers and making the webpages on their websites difficult to access.
SC 2020 ruling:
- It shall be mandatory for political parties during central and state elections to put out detailed information about candidates with criminal cases pending against them, including the nature of the offences.
- Parties must also list the reasons for selecting such candidates and state why others without criminal antecedents were not selected.
- The information should be published in one local vernacular newspaper, a national newspaper, and on the official social media platforms of the political party, including Facebook and Twitter.
- These details are to be published within 48 hours of the selection of the candidate.
- If a political party fails to comply, it would be the contempt of the Court's orders/directions.
Need for the move:
- There has been an alarming increase in the number of candidates with criminal records entering politics.
- In 2004, 24% of members of Parliament (MPs) had criminal cases pending against them.
- In 2009, that went up to 30%, in 2014 to 34%, and in 2019 as many as 43% of MPs had criminal cases pending against them.
- People around the country are unhappy with the quality of governance.
- Given limited choices, they vote as best as they can.
- But no matter how many parties are changed, governance does not really improve.
- Using money power to buy MLAs and MPs sometimes makes a mockery of election outcomes.
- Meanwhile, electoral bonds bring secrecy back into political funding.
- Several laws and court judgments have not helped much, the reason is lack of enforcement of laws and judgments.
- It is also not clear what penalty would be imposed if the recent orders are not followed.
Way Forward:
- As politics dominates the bureaucracy, and reins in business, civil society and the media, we need governance that is free of the criminal virus.
- Mere capability is not sufficient but the intent to do public service is also required.
- There is a need to be more vigilant both at the institutional as well as individual level.
- This includes monitoring the affidavits of candidates, working with the Election Commission to ensure that information is promptly available on their websites, and widely circulating this information to voters using all the social media tools available.
- It also includes monitoring compliance with the Supreme Court judgment to see if details of tainted candidates are promptly put up on their websites, and on their social media handles, along with proper reasons for giving them ticket.
- Voters also need to be vigilant about misuse of money, gifts and other inducements during elections.
Conclusion:
The political party and its leadership would for the first time have to publicly own up to criminalisation of politics that they had been denying all these years. Though we may not see dramatic changes in the quality of candidates. Campaigns may continue to be more and more personal and even abusive. But all these steps are required, however insignificant they may seem to break down the solid wall of corruption and for decriminalisation of Politics in India.
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