Hyderabad: Certain anomalies if not nipped in the bud itself, shall become phenomenal over the period when it will be very difficult to control them.
The criminal politics in Indian democracy is a point under discussion. The ugliness of the criminal politics of the political parties that have turned the country into a shallow democracy is really shocking. The number of representatives with a criminal record in the 14th Lok Sabha rose from 24 per cent to 30 per cent in the 15th session, to 34 per cent in the 16th Lok Sabha and 43 per cent in the current Lok Sabha.
In the fight going on in the shape of Public Interest Litigations to alleviate this predicament, the latest affidavit submitted by the Central Government to the Supreme Court is bothering the thinkers.
Section 8 (3) of the Representation of the People Act stipulates that a Member of Parliament who is convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for a term which is punishable by two years' imprisonment shall be disqualified from that date and shall remain disqualified for six years from the date of his/her release.
The judiciary sought the stand of the Central Government on the contention that in terms of Article 14 of the Constitution it is inappropriate that a convicted public representative is expelled for a fixed period of time while public servants convicted under the IPC as well as other laws are dismissed for a lifetime.
While the Election Commission has made it clear that the convicted public servants should be expelled for a lifetime, the central government agreed with it and declared that everyone is equal before the law, but acted contrarily.
Contending that unlike the services of the public servants which are subject to certain service conditions, the public representatives are committed to the service of the country and people, the central government declared that there is no need to amend the RPA rules and regulations.
The Centre has completely ignored the public interest involved in the lawsuit seeking to ban convicted leaders for a lifetime and control them from making indirect entry by creating a political party or accepting key positions in any political party.
"Indian democracy needs to be liberated from people with criminal background ... I have come for political cleansing," said Modi in a statement in April 2014 as the Prime Ministerial candidate. When the ‘Supreme Court' ruled in 2013 that people in jail will lose the right to vote and such people will not have the right to contest elections also, the then UPA government moved on a war footing to nullify it. Although Modi has spoken the majority public opinion that people with a criminal record should not be allowed to enter politics, there has been no proper action all these years in that direction.
In its report, the Judicial Council noted that if the people with a criminal record are restrained from contesting in elections from the date the courts have registered criminal charges against them based on the examination of preliminary evidence, the possibility of criminal politics will be nipped in the bud.
It also cited the precautions to be taken in its report. In September 2018, a five-member Constitutional Tribunal ruled that criminal politics were undermining democratic roots and that strict law should be enacted to prevent criminals indulging in heinous crimes from entering the election fray. Since such wise counselling is ignored, the Bihar Assembly today is rocked by 58 per cent hard-core criminal ‘Baahubalis’, who recently came straight from jail in a police vehicle, submitted nominations and won the elections. As gill transforms into a chameleon, these criminal politicians are establishing political parties and devouring democracy. Despite such calamity is threatening the nation and despite the Supreme Court's strong recommendation for proper legislation, it is not right for the NDA government to keep mum. Democracy in India will be safe only when criminal politics are rejected ruthlessly!
