Editor,
In the recently concluded elections, the Arunachalis have democratically chosen their leaders for the next few years. But the truth will never be hidden by money. The truth is that poor Arunachal Pradesh will be led by a bunch of tycoons and criminals.
The Association for Democratic Reforms and the Arunachal Pradesh Election Watch analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 59 out of the 60 winning candidates in the assembly elections in the state. They found that, out of the 59 winning candidates analysed, 57 (97%) are crorepatis. Their report says that, out of the 59 winning candidates, 13 (22%) have declared criminal cases against themselves. In addition to that, 12 new legislators (20%) have declared serious criminal cases, which is up from 8 out of 60 (13%) in 2019.
The above facts reveal that participating in politics and becoming an MP is an effective channel to become a multimillionaire in India, or that only multimillionaires can participate in Indian politics and become MPs.
Having lived in Arunachal for more than two decades, I am no longer shocked by such phenomena and even believe that whatever political party or legislator goes on to lead Arunachal, perhaps the number of tycoons, the amount of votes, and the number of new faces in the legislature will increase, but one thing will remain unchanged, and that is that Arunachal will remain as poor as the perpetually unrepaired sewer manhole covers on the streets of Itanagar.
Kabir