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The Number Of Criminals And Crorepatis Who Contested In The Rajasthan Elections Will Shock You!
More from Deepak Venkateswaran
The votes have been cast and the results are out. Instead of passing judgements on the winning party, let’s go into flashback mode. I will give you a quick analysis of the candidate generics. This write-up is in light of a report by Rajasthan Election Watch (REW) and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) who have analysed the self-sworn affidavits candidates from all the major political parties and outgoing Independent MLAs contesting in the Rajasthan State Assembly Elections. A total of 2087 candidates filed affidavits with the ECI, among whom REW and ADR have analysed 733 candidates.
The state of the Indian polity is such that the first aspect to be considered while discussing elections is the criminal background of the candidates. Credit goes to the AAP for being the first party to have stayed free from tainted candidates. Moving on to Rajasthan, the issue of criminalism among voters is what strikes us first:
- Out of the 733 candidates analysed, 111 candidates (15%) have declared criminal cases against them with 62 having serious cases including murder, attempt to murder and kidnapping. The lion’s share of these “privileged” candidates goes to the BJP(31) while the Congress follows a close second with 28. It’s surprising when in a state with a population of nearly 7 crores, the ruling parties could find only these tainted candidates to represent their constituency. One can only wonder why criminality is not shunned upon while considering the rulers of a country while every other post demands a clean track record. It is foolish to think that these candidates would suddenly turn over a new leaf if they were to get power.
The next criteria was the financial background of these candidates:
- Out of the 733 candidates analysed, 346 (47%) are crorepatis. The average asset of these 733 candidates was analysed at Rs.2.97 Crores, a clear increase from the previous assembly elections which showed 1.43 crores. The biggest contributors to this group were candidates with assets of 118.96, 87.7 and 65.5 crores in descending order. While one should not be prejudiced towards candidates just because their bank balance is high, the trends that have emerged from this analysis show a dangerous aspect wherein some vested interests may be contesting elections with ulterior motives which we as laymen may not be privy to.
The picture was not all bleak.
- In terms of education, the otherwise grim analysis showed that a total 364 (50%) candidates out of 733 analyzed are graduates or have higher degrees. It brings some relief that the people who are to hold the reins of power would atleast have a cogent idea of doing their business. Sometimes, just degrees are not the benchmarks to good performance. Those who haven’t seen beyond the walls of a school could always seek help from their educated counterparts.
- Another bright aspect of the survey was that the average age of the candidates was nearly around 35 years with a majority of the candidates between 25-50.
It would make a great difference to every party if they field honest and dedicated candidates, the AAP is a shining example for that. Of course, it would be difficult to satisfy every aspect but they could certainly try. Until then, every pre-election and post-election analysis would warrant such scrutiny.
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balayogi
AAP is a different story altogether .
The AAP phenomenon the positives and negatives
The big positive of AAP is that it has given hope to middle class educated youth that they can take to politics also as a profession.
If you just follow certain events there is a pattern to it. Only thing is we must discern that pattern.
Leading a group of slogan shouting youth with justifiable angst is one thing forming part of a very visible end of the spectrum, which strives for an ideological identity after sometime especially more so if that angst has been against everything around, almost a sign of frustration fuelling the flames, which can get very good TRP rates and brownie points with the media but the other extreme side of the spectrum which is less visible, sometimes even murky, is that of getting into sincere politics which mainly involves governance , a very complicated one in the present day involving reasonable adjustments and give and take here and there sometimes even big compromises in the overall long term interests of the institution, in this context it is the state or union government you are likely to rule or be part of the governing process.
For this you need a much matured, not emotionally charged, team with not only knowledge and urge to do things but also some amount of experienced persons in the team as well.
You can be propelled to prominence or power through emotionally charged single issue/agenda but that won’t sustain you and gradually you tend to get by carried away by the attention and popularity and that to sustain that power you end up resorting to all sorts of tricks much worse than those that you criticized and attacked before.
V.P. Singh was propelled by only one agenda, Anti-Bofors, anti Rajiv sentiments, he capitalized on that and was propelled to power, in his case he already had experience, knowledge etc but once that interest in Anti-Bofors faded to retain power he injected Mandal commission and ended up very vague not knowing what he was doing and ultimately totally moved away from politics and history will never forgive him for introducing an unwarranted reservation just to capture votes.
Best way to fight corruption is to fight it in the courts through proper litigation. Lokpal bill implementation cannot be the only agenda, though an important one, that too, in the form and scope in which Anna Hazare wants it, is pure impractical and irrational idealism.
Coming to another issue, morally and ethically, Anna Hazare was consciously sincere but was gradually led to be confused starting from the first day of his agitation when he had the back drop of Bharath Matha’s picture then was made to switch over to Gandhi’s picture, a preferred brand by the left infested media. He never wanted a political party. In a way Arvind Kejeriwal high jacked the movement to his advantageand capitalized the anti congress votes as in Tamil Nadu E.V.R and Rajaji both had anti congress views, E.V.R started the anti Brahmin or Dravidian movement and which was high jacked by DMK and both the DK that E.V.R started and the Jansangh that Rajaji aligned with faded behind the screens.
Irrespective of whichever profession you take up especially out of your own interest and hope that you can do something in that profession, you don’t start off by blaming everyone else in that profession as ineffective, useless, corrupt etc.
How can AAP you make sweeping general statements about other big parties as if real politics is like the antics of film scripted heroes punch dialogues or pet slogans on certain issues. How can you blindly sweep under the carpet many good schemes done and introduced by leaders like P.V.Narasimha Rao of congress in the interest of economic development or vajpayee’s infrastructural developments, recently Modi’s great works of economic development in all domains of the state, or Taron Gogoi of Assam managing a state which was almost under the clutches of secessionist outfits.
So this AAP seems more like a bunch of half baked, Indian brand of Marxist leftist propaganda mechanism which unfortunately has many friends in the media and have lost even in the only state where they [ I mean CPM] ruled and that is the state with the least development. Hope you understand that. what is welcome is educated sincere youth, out side the dynasties, jumping into the political arena with good intention but that must not be anchored on a single agenda of only criticizing blindly all other political outfits as if AAP is the only do all and worthy all party ever to have emerged. They are just another political party with no ideological identity or idea about governance whatsoever.
I have read a story where a rich very old couples resort to abusing all those around out of frustration and also out of arrogance of their wealth, then a clever driver of the couple not only takes possession of the vehicle which he was driving for the couple for more than a decade but also takes every other servant or worker in the house and they all end up fighting over the wealth.
All these are the result of a Prime Minister who does not know who runs the government whether Ahamed Patel , or Sharad Pawar, or P. Chidambaram or Kapil Sibal or Sekar Gupta or NAC or Farook Abdulla or Karunanidhi at least he must know who runs the government when he knows he is not running it. This idiot Manmohan Singh is worse than a drunken dad to a family at least he will be aware what is his family when he is sober.
Shivangi Singh
I would jst say , it was a good review !!