Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday reopened the debate on de-criminalising electoral politics by exhorting parties “to evolvea consensus” on barring those with criminal records from contesting polls.
Speaking on a function to mark 60 years of the Election Commission of India (ECI), Ms Gandhi spoke about “doing more...in contending with the influence of money and muscle power (in elections)” and stressed the need for bringing “even greater transparency”. She said: “We also need to build a consensus on how to prevent individuals with a criminal record from contesting elections.”
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who also spoke at the function, echoed Ms Gandhi’s words by talking of the questionable backgrounds of many of the contestants. “The background of many contestants, and quite often the winning ones, does not inspire confidence in voters,” Mr Singh said. The PM spelt out the problem when he said that there was a near unanimity that something should be done about this, and the other ills, of the current system but there was no consensus on how to go about it.
The political class in India has been content to let the problem linger as all parties have flouted the ideal of keeping out criminals at the crunch time when candidates have to be decided. The 2009 Lok Sabha elections saw parties, including Congress, give nominations to those with criminal backgrounds. Despite the Congress chief’s plea about de-criminalising politics, the party had no qualms about giving tickets to as many as 24 candidates with criminal backgrounds in just the first phase of the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, according to figures released by an NGO, Association for Democratic Reforms. BJP came second with 23 candidates followed by BSP (17) and SP (10).
In UP where BSP and SP hold sway, the list of candidates with criminal backgrounds was among the longest. Among those given tickets by BSP were D P Yadav, Mukhtar Ansari, Afzal Ansari, Dhananjay Singh and Anna Shukla. SP, among others, had Brij Bhushan Sharan and BJP fielded Ramakant Yadav. The recent elections held in Jharkhand once again saw a record number of candidates with criminal backgrounds.
Source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Must-clean-politics-of-criminals-Sonia/articleshow/5500967.cms
Speaking on a function to mark 60 years of the Election Commission of India (ECI), Ms Gandhi spoke about “doing more...in contending with the influence of money and muscle power (in elections)” and stressed the need for bringing “even greater transparency”. She said: “We also need to build a consensus on how to prevent individuals with a criminal record from contesting elections.”
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who also spoke at the function, echoed Ms Gandhi’s words by talking of the questionable backgrounds of many of the contestants. “The background of many contestants, and quite often the winning ones, does not inspire confidence in voters,” Mr Singh said. The PM spelt out the problem when he said that there was a near unanimity that something should be done about this, and the other ills, of the current system but there was no consensus on how to go about it.
The political class in India has been content to let the problem linger as all parties have flouted the ideal of keeping out criminals at the crunch time when candidates have to be decided. The 2009 Lok Sabha elections saw parties, including Congress, give nominations to those with criminal backgrounds. Despite the Congress chief’s plea about de-criminalising politics, the party had no qualms about giving tickets to as many as 24 candidates with criminal backgrounds in just the first phase of the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, according to figures released by an NGO, Association for Democratic Reforms. BJP came second with 23 candidates followed by BSP (17) and SP (10).
In UP where BSP and SP hold sway, the list of candidates with criminal backgrounds was among the longest. Among those given tickets by BSP were D P Yadav, Mukhtar Ansari, Afzal Ansari, Dhananjay Singh and Anna Shukla. SP, among others, had Brij Bhushan Sharan and BJP fielded Ramakant Yadav. The recent elections held in Jharkhand once again saw a record number of candidates with criminal backgrounds.
Source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Must-clean-politics-of-criminals-Sonia/articleshow/5500967.cms
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