\n
\n
By Poonam I Kaushish<\/strong><\/p>\n \n Circa 1996: \u201cWhich MP doesn\u2019t take money\u2026people who have made money from coal and iron\u2026money in thailis and gathris\u2026CPM and JMM take levy from people. Petrol pumps..Even BJP is involved. Do saand ke beech bachchre ko kyon la rahe ho?\u201d JMM MP Suraj Mandal<\/p>\n Circa 2023: \u201cI can\u2019t promise that I\u2019ll do ethical politics 100%,\u201d Maharashtra Dy Chief Minister now Chief Minister Fadnavis.<\/p>\n Circa 2024: \u201cI will rule from jail….where does Constitution say Chief Minister cannot rule from jail,\u201d thundered Kejriwal, AAP Chief.<\/p>\n Today, it is finally official. Politics has nothing to do with morality, accountability and healthy conventions. Crime and conviction is the flavour of our political season. When crime and gold speak, tongues are silent. Which pays rich dividends to its owner depending on the fluctuating value of his stock! A sense of de ja vu overwhelms.<\/p>\n Not any more. If the Supreme Court has its say \u2014 and way in a PIL seeking a lifetime ban on convicted politicians from contesting elections or being nominated to Parliament or State Legislatures. Averred Court: \u201cOnce convicted or found guilty of breaking the law how can people come back to Parliament and Legislatures? There is an apparent conflict of interest. The examination of the issue of de-criminalisation of politics must not be a half-baked exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n Ouch! it hit bull\u2019s eye when Centre questioned the Court logic saying prison sentences or punishments under penal law are for a specific period, after which convicts regain their rights and are prompted to rejoin society. Six years was enough punishment for errant or criminal legislators. Banning a person, who has served his time in jail for an offence, from contesting elections or re-entering politics for life would be unduly harsh, disproportionate and excessive.<\/p>\n Besides, imposing a life ban amounts to rewriting RPA\u2019s Section 8 by replacing \u2018six years\u2019 with \u2018life-long\u2019. \u201cCourts cannot direct Parliament to make a law or to legislate in a particular way\u2026 it goes beyond the powers and scope of judicial review…it\u2019s entirely the domain of Parliament, added Government.<\/p>\n Scandalously, out of 514 Lok Sabha MPs, 225 (44%) have criminal cases against them according to Association of Democratic Reforms. Of these 29% face serious criminal cases, nine face murder, 30 attempt to murder and remaining crimes against women, including three rape allegations. Of these 21 are BJP MPs and 50% from UP, Maharashtra, Bihar, Himachal,\u00a0 Andhra and Telangana.<\/p>\n Add to this a whopping 2,556 MLAs from 22 States accused of heinous crimes. One Congress MLA has 204 cases including culpable homicide, house trespass, robbery and criminal intimidation. Already over 5,000 criminal cases against MPs-MLAs are pending despite Courts directions to facilitate speedy disposal.<\/p>\n What is it about crime and cleaning rajniti that has our netas scurrying for cover? Especially when they go blue in the face about ushering in Surf ki chamkaan wali politics? Go to any extent to prove (sic) their sincere endeavours? Yet when it comes to acting on their words, they feign ignorance and play dumb, blind and deaf.<\/p>\n One \u2018clean\u2019 Chief Minister trumped me by arguing, \u201cKaunsi naitikta aur apradh ki baat kar rahe hain. What has morality to do with politics?\u201d Just because a candidate has criminal antecedents doesn\u2019t mean he is not doing social work. I have 22 Ministers with criminal backgrounds I don\u2019t bother about a Ministers\u2019 past. After joining my Government, they are not indulging in crimes and are ready to help suppress criminal activities. Ask the people why they have elected them.\u201d How does one rebut his logic?<\/p>\n Alas, today we live in a chor-chor-mauser-bhai political milieu, where public morality and practical politics has acquired a particularly grotesque dimension whereby nine out of ten cases go unreported.\u00a0 Confessed a seasoned politician: Hum sab ek hi thaali ke chate-bate hain aur is apradhikaran ke hamam mein nagain hai! Na BJP mein hain danav, na Congresss mein devta.\u201d<\/p>\n In a you-scratch-my-back- I-yours market model of democracy it is a misnomer to believe that netas are governed by ideology. Instead, there is a tendency to capture the imagination of the people by creating a spectacle of crime along-with money which makes the clogged, polluted and corrupt political mare go around.<\/p>\n Whereby politics has everything to do with acceptability, little with credibility and public life is all compromises, not principles dripping morality sermons but not practicing it. Wring your hands all you want, but that does not take away from the fact that morality, honesty and integrity are words non-existent in the political vocabulary.<\/p>\n In a milieu where crime and sleaze is India\u2019s creepy-crawly Osama bin Laden which permeates every core of daily Government functioning ensnaring the country in its vicious tentacles, the temptation to crime is always great, indeed irresistible. In this political crime brothel one may not begrudge our netagan from making money, ostensibly for Party funds or feathering his own nest. That is the prevailing culture.<\/p>\n With money-muscle power continuing to bedevil democracy Courts too are helpless. In 2022 too, a rueful Court accentuated that crime continues regardless of it ordering Parties to not field candidates with criminal antecedents in Assembly polls. \u201cWe have been telling the legislature to take action against candidates against whom charges have been framed but nothing has been done. Nothing is done and nothing will ever be done by any Party to prevent criminals from entering politics and standing for elections. Unfortunately, we can\u2019t legislate.\u201d<\/p>\n Worse, criminal are crowding out honest candidates at national and State level. According to a recent report 45.5% \u2018criminal\u2019 candidates win against 24.7% with clean backgrounds. Sadly, the number of mafiaso-netas are rapidly multiplying in legislatures ushering in a new \u2018don\u2019 (dawn) wherein yesterday\u2019s dons are today\u2019s Right Honourables: a law unto themselves and all-powerful. With an MP-MLA tag, acting like a bullet-proof jacket from police, encounters and rivals.<\/p>\n Instead of rooting for criminals our polity must compete to enhance sensibility. How many murder charges are required before one is considered unfit to represent people? Are there no honest and capable netas? When will we stop hanging petty thieves and electing criminals to public office? Who will bell the criminal cat?<\/p>\n Remember, \u2018Conduct of Politics\u2019 necessitates reliability, integrity, credibility, conviction and courage. There should be no scope for lingering doubt or suspicion that politics is the last refuge of a scoundrel. As nothing costs a nation more than cheap politicians!<\/p>\n The coming days are crucial. The Supreme Court has held a mirror. Time our politicians realize they are expected to be a notch above ordinary mortals. Our netas need to desist from Crime for Power and Power of Crime. Given that when an undataa becomes a saudagar, aam aadmi\u00a0 is bound to become garib!<\/p>\n It\u2019s in healthy democracy interest that unhealthy precedents are not set. Parliamentary democracy can succeed only when rules of the game are followed honestly. Our politicians need to remember a home-truth: Public accountability is indispensable in a democratic set-up. With power comes responsibility.<\/p>\n On hopes our leaders will now chart a new dimension in upholding the best tenets of Parliamentary morality and probity. Time they woke up from their deep slumber of self conceit and deception and smelt the coffee. Can a nation continue to be bereft of all sense of shame and morality \u2014 and for how long? \u2014 INFA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Court Asks Jan Sevaks By Poonam I Kaushish Circa 1996: \u201cWhich MP doesn\u2019t take money\u2026people who have made money from coal and iron\u2026money in thailis and gathris\u2026CPM and JMM take levy from people. Petrol pumps..Even BJP is involved. Do saand ke beech bachchre ko kyon la rahe ho?\u201d JMM MP Suraj Mandal Circa 2023: \u201cI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-260211","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-features"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}