Is only UP hostage to criminals?
 

S. Venkatesh 

Criminalization of politics is a problem that is not peculiar just to the UP, a State that has more population than Russia and Australia put together. It is there in other States too but the difference is that in UP it is just more acute. What does an ordinary man do with a situation where he has to choose between dons? The truth is that the Indian polity needs to sit up, take this problem seriously and address it at the earliest. 

Perhaps it is wrong to single out Uttar Pradesh when criminals are sprinkled all over the country's politics.   The sole reason for such concentrated attention on this large, and many feel unwieldy State whose population is more than Russia and Australia put together, are the constant reports about the large number of criminals contesting the Assembly poll.

Of course, if you were to believe Amitabh Bacchan, who frequently told television audiences in his compelling voice, then U.P. is the most peaceful State as compared to other States.  And if people took it with loads of salt it is understandable considering his close association with the ruling party in the State led by Mulayam Singh Yadav on the one hand, and the notorious characters who adorn the candidates' list.   Then again, one might turn around and say this is an old phenomenon.  But this election has some additional features; one of them being that the number of those with criminal records contesting the poll is larger than the previous elections.

The Uttar Pradesh Election Watch, an independent election-monitoring organisation, of which the former State Director General of Police, I. C. Dwivedi, is the convener, has noted that all the major political parties have a certain number of hopeful entrants to the Assembly with criminal backgrounds.   Quite a few have a long list of crime appended to their names, like murder, dacoity and extortion.  What about the tall promises made by all the political outfits at the time of releasing their manifestos that they would not touch those with a criminal past with a pair of tongs?   They have gone down the drain like all other promises they usually mouth before the elections.  The people have come to treat these assurances with casual nonchalance.   They know that the politicians almost always do not mean what they say.

The Election Watch, going through the affidavits submitted by the candidates before the Election authority, has found that all the parties are culprits.   The Samajwadi Party leads with roughly 35% of its candidates facing many charge–sheets, followed by Bahujan Samaj Party with 32 per cent, the BJP has about 30 percent and the Congress 20.

Dons and gangsters are campaigning vigorously for themselves or others.   In at least one case a dreaded dacoit is supporting a Bahujan Samajwadi Party candidate.   In most of these cases such criminals get elected into legislature.   Which makes one wonder how or why should people vote for such known bad characters?  The obvious answer, fear, is brushed aside by a Member of Parliament also on the campaign trail for his party's candidate.   Himself facing at least 20 cases of murder and attempt to murder, he says, without batting an eyelid, "they vote us because they love us".

At least three men absconding from the police have surfaced to contest.   And those MLAs, who had to resign their seats because they were caught on camera by a television channel taking bribes for various nefarious acts, including one for smuggling drugs, have brazenly come out to test their popularity in the Assembly poll.

An idea of how politicians generally view such criminals was given by no less than the Chief Minister, Mulam Singh Yadav himself in one of his election speeches in support of his party's candidate.   He told the gathering "Yes, he is a criminal, but you vote him to the Assembly, and he would give up his criminal activities".  Not merely that.   Mulayam Singh got the candidate apologised to the crowd for all his past deeds.   And the candidate echoed his leader's words – "I will not indulge in any criminal activity if I am elected to the Assembly".   The catch in the two statements could not have been missed but the audience – "if I am elected" – which carries the underlying threat that if not voted in, he would revert to his old habits.

In all this murky scene, one is forced to admire the bold initiative of a new party in the U P political mine, the Bharat Punarnirman Dal, a handful of middle-class youth educated in some of the top institutions in the country but voicing the despair of the helpless majority.   One of the founder-members of the party is Omendra Pratap Singh, a post-graduate from IIT, Kanpur.  "Just as we had the movement for independence and the green revolution for food security, we need a political revolution to clean up politics" he says.

The fledgling party marked its presence in Andhra Pradesh and Mumbai, too.   In Andhra, two of its fold, a professor and a doctor, won the elections to the legislative council in March and the party won 6.5% votes in the municipal polls in Mumbai, a helpful beginning for a new party with a mission.   Singh told a businessman whole on his campaign, "It is time for us educated people to enter politics.   Today's politics is full of crime and corruption.   We offer you a change."  A political analyst, while wishing them success, said that mere corruption and crime could not be the only agenda; they had to offer solutions to the everyday problems of the common man.  

Another group, with a similar mission, has also been active.   The Vigyan Jagrookta Samiti, as it is called, consists of 150-odd scientists many teaching in foreign universities and some India.   Rajvashisht Tripathi, who is a professor of cardio-vascular genetics at the University of California, one of the activists of the party, says "we have made a humble beginning with Chillupar constituency of Gorakhpur.   For this election, this is our social laboratory.   This constituency incidentally is being represented by Hari Shankar Tiwari with an awesome criminal record.

The Samiti is using simple methods to get across its point of view.   It travels around the villages, using folk music and dance, to tell the people, "How would you feel if your MLA shoots another elected MLA?   It is coming to that now.   Why wait for that to happen?  Let us make a beginning now."

The question of keeping criminals out of the party's list of ticket-holders has long been debated.   The parties have always shied away from taking the bull by the horns.  There is no consensus.  And no party is willing to plough the lone furrow.   The result is election after election, whether it is in U.P., Bihar or Tamil Nadu, Assembly or Lok Sabha poll, parties' handout tickets to criminals.   The only criterion for the party is that he/she should be a winnable candidate.  It is all a game of numbers and they do not mind sacrificing political morality for such success.

The Election Commission has been making repeated suggestions and recommendations to deter such elements from entering legislatures.   But successive governments have chosen to let such reports from the Commission gather dust.  The National Commission on Constitutional Reforms had inter-alia suggested that section 8(4) of the Representation of People's Act, wherein members are not disqualified even when convicted until their appeal is decided, should be deleted.   Further, it suggested that if an elected representative got convicted on charges related to specific crimes he should be required to withdraw from the legislature for six months, and if within that period he failed to get an acquittal, he should be disqualified.

The Present Election Commission's suggestion to the political parties, that those against whom charge-sheets had been filed should not be allowed to contest, has been rejected by a parliamentary standing committee.

If politicians do not want to eliminate criminalization in politics, nothing could be done.   The way the disease is spreading very soon it may be too late to do anything under a democratic set-up.

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