Make Our Politicians And The Political Parties Accountable
By Anil Bairwal
05 January,
2009
Countercurrents.org
A recent news from America wasn’t discussed in Indian media as much as several others emanating from there. An in-office Governor, Rod Blagojevich from the state of Illinois was arrested and put into jail on Dec 9 this year – one of the charges was scheming to sell a vacant senate seat. The Governor is still in jail. Let us contrast this with what is happening here at home.
During recent elections in 6 states allegations flew left and right – that MLA seats were sold for a price. A national leader of a major party raised these allegations. The party quickly gave a show cause notice and removed her from all official posts of the party. In another state, a group of MLAs, from another major party, raised same allegations (against their own party). This group was also made to leave the party and was quickly called rebels. Was there truth in those allegations or were these just outbursts of some disgruntled members we will never know. Although both parties have denied any wrong doing, they have not come out and answered questions to voters’ satisfaction. The fact is that there needs to be an effective law to govern the inner functions of political parties.
For all states going to polls, there were media reports that prospective candidates made bee lines to party offices for tickets. Some sat in front of the house of party presidents/office bearers demanding tickets, some protested with their groups when others got the tickets, some even shouted slogans and gave comments to the media. In a program with Lok Sabha TV, party leaders of two major parties were at pains to explain that their parties were very highly democratic and elected candidates in a very transparent manner. They were however unable to give reasons for why there were so many protests and miffed members in front of their party offices during the candidate selection processes. People today are looking for answers and but political parties refuse to take initiatives to make themselves transparent.
Mumbai terror brought everybody’s attention to the preponderance of corruption and need for ethics in politics. There were voices across the nation about the need to reform. The only people that do not have seemed to listen are our politicians. Some politicians were made to leave their office because of public pressure but the basic questions about our political system have remained unanswered. Unless we fix the basic issues of corruption and criminalization in politics, make political parties democratic and transparent we cannot expect much change.
In another incident – on Dec 16, 2008, as a follow-up on cash-for-vote scam, the Lok Sabha Committee exonerated main players implicated in the scam and has order further probe again three players. Most people are cynical in how this enquiry has been handled and doubt where the guilty will be brought to the book. That this is happened right after the entire nation was asking for more accountability and ethics from our politicians makes it even more reprehensible.
On criminalization, the recent election watches conducted by National Election Watch (www.adrindia.org) and its partners have shown that while 5 years back, the number of contesting candidates with criminal cases was around 20%, it has now come down to about 12%. This is a huge victory of civil society organizations.
However the no of MLAs with criminal cases have gone up from 18% to 20%. That this has happened in spite of the fact that before elections, leaders of both the major national parties promising that they will not field any candidates with criminal records, again shows the need for making our parties more accountable. As we enter into a new year, getting ready for general elections to put a new government in place at center, can civil societies mount enough pressure on our establishment to make them more responsible?
Anil Bairwal is an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad, entrepreneur and a social activist. A software professional with B.E in Computer science from MNREC Allahabad, Anil worked for a large multinational company in US for about ten years and then moved to India to start and head the India office. He also started two of his own companies which he sold off to focus completely on social work. Anil is currently the national coordinator of Association of Democratic Reforms. He has just finished coordinating election watches in recent state elections working with several state teams in each state where polls were conducted. " He can be reached at [email protected]
