Bihar polls expose hypocrisy of politicians on crime-free politics

The ongoing Bihar Assembly election has once again exposed the hypocrisy of the political class on decriminalisation of politics in India.Irrespective of their ideology and claims about clean politics, all major political parties and alliances have unabashedly fielded a large number of candidates with criminal antecedents.

According to an analysis of self-sworn affidavits of 2,600 out of 2,616 candidates contesting the Bihar 2025 Assembly elections by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Bihar Election Watch, 838 (32 per cent) candidates have criminal cases against them and 695 (27 per cent) have serious criminal cases.

As many as 108 (47 per cent) of 231 candidates from the Jan Suraaj Party, 35 (19 per cent) of 180 candidates from the BSP, 91 (65 per cent) of 140 candidates from the RJD, 61 (60 per cent) of 101 candidates from the BJP, 36 (36 per cent) of 101 candidates from the JD (U), 24 (29) of 83 candidates from the AAP, 40 (67 per cent) of 60 candidates from the Congress, 16 (57 per cent) of 28 candidates from the Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), 18 (90 per cent) of 20 candidates from the CPI (ML) (L), seven (78 per cent) of nine candidates from the CPI and all four (100 per cent) CPI(M) candidates have criminal cases against them, the ADR analysis revealed.

Ninety-four of the candidates faced crimes against women (including five rape cases) while 52 had murder and 165 had attempt-to-murder charges against them.

Last year, an ADR analysis revealed that 251 of the 543 newly-elected Lok Sabha MPs had criminal cases registered against them.

More than three decades after the Vohra Committee report (1993) highlighted the “sinister linkages” between politicians, bureaucrats and organised crime syndicates, nothing appears to have changed.

The fact that political parties routinely field such a large number of candidates with criminal background in elections is a sad commentary on the largest democracy in the world. Even worse is the inability of the Election Commission to take measures to arrest this disturbing trend that erodes public trust in the democratic process.

It’s not surprising that the agenda of electoral reforms has been pushed by the judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court, which has delivered a series of judgments to rid the political system of criminals.

In March 2003, the top court ruled that voters have a fundamental right to know candidates’ qualifications, assets, liabilities and criminal antecedents, if any.

A decade later in 2013, it delivered four important verdicts on electoral reforms. Freebies promised by political parties in poll manifestos vitiate the electoral process, it said directing the Election Commission to frame guidelines to check it in consultation of political parties.

The top court ruled that an MP/MLA convicted of any offence attracting a punishment of two years or above shall be disqualified immediately. It invalidated Section 8(4) of the Representation of the People Act that allowed a convicted MP/MLA to continue in office if he/she appealed in a higher court within three months of conviction.

It further ruled that knowing about a candidate is the voter’s natural right in a democracy, and non- disclosure of information by a contestant in his/her affidavit, leaving the relevant columns blank, will result in rejection of the nomination. The top court also gave Indian voters the option of none of the above (NOTA) in EVMs in 2013.

In February 2015, the Supreme Court ruled a legislator’s election can be declared “null and void” for non-disclosure of his/her criminal antecedents as it created an impediment in the free exercise of electoral right.

In January 2017, the top court declared that election is a secular process and if votes are sought in the name of religion, race, caste, community or language of a candidate, his agent or that of voters it would amount to corrupt practice – a ground to set aside elections.

In December 2017, the SC directed the Centre to set up 12 special courts to exclusively deal with cases involving politicians to speed up their trial.

Displaying judicial restraint, the Supreme Court on September 25, 2018, refrained from debarring politicians facing serious criminal charges from contesting polls. It left it to Parliament to enact a law to rid Indian politics of criminals. But unfortunately, Parliament has failed to act on the issue.

The 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill, which seeks to amend Articles 75 and 164, has proposed that a minister arrested and detained for 30 consecutive days for an alleged offense punishable with imprisonment of at least five years shall be removed from office. But why not prevent tainted politicians from contesting polls?

Noting that disqualification upon conviction has proved to be incapable of curbing the growing criminalisation of politics, owing to long delays in trials and rare convictions, the Law Commission in its 244th Report (2014) recommended that a person should be debarred from contesting elections if a court of competent jurisdiction has framed charges against him/her for a serious offence attracting an imprisonment of five years or above at least a year before the date of scrutiny of nomination papers.

Prevention is always better than cure. It’s time to act now.