Editor,
I have been walking on the streets for the past two days and I have seen many people cheering, dancing and singing for their favourite political parties and MPs to win the elections, playing musical instruments hard to give vent to their happy emotions, but is the truth behind it really worth being happy about?
In the recently concluded elections, Arunachalians 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 (ADR) and Arunachal Pradesh Election Watch analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 59 out of 60 winning candidates in the Arunachal Pradesh 2024 assembly elections. They found that out of the 59 winning candidates analysed, 57 (97%) are crorepatis. 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 to the people that participating in politics and becoming an MP is an effective channel to become a multi-millionaire in India or only multi-millionaires can participate in Indian politics and become MPs. Having lived in Arunachal Pradesh for more than two decades, I am no longer shocked by such phenomena and even believe that whatever political party or legislator goes to lead Arunachal Pradesh, 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 Pradesh will remain as poor as the perpetually unrepaired sewer manhole covers on the streets of Itanagar.
A citizen