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“The President of India is the head of state of the Republic of India.[3] The President is the formal head of the legislature, executive and judiciary branches of Indian Democracy and is the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces. The powers to pardon and clemency are vested with the President of India. [from Wikipedia]India is about to have its new president. Polling is just at the corner. Parties have fielded their candidates. Candidates are busily campainging for luring the voters. Voters are playfully watching the drama. Btw, who are these voters? What is their background? Let us see few details…
Following are the voters who would select the President of India.
Member of Parliaments – 772
MLAs – 4120
TOTAL – 4892
Numbers are fine. Designations are awesome. But there are few startling factors too.
National Elections Watch (NEW), a network of 1200 civil society groups across india, has carried out a survey and has revealed bitter truths about MPs and MLAs who would be electing the next President of India.
- Out of 4,892 MPs and MLAs, 1448 are having criminal records declared against them.
- Out of these 1148 MPs/MLAs, 809 are charged with serious crimes.
- These criminal charges include heinous crimes like rape, murder, extortion, robbery, kidnapping etc.
- 6 MPs/MLAs have declared rape charges in their self-sworn affidavits filed before Election Commission during the last held elections.
- 141 MPs/MLAs have declared murder charges.
- 352 have declared attempt to murder charges.
- 145 have theft cases filed against them.
- 90 have declared kidnapping charges.
- 75 are slapped with decoity charges.
NEW has given the state-wise details as well…
- Uttar Pradesh leads the table of tainted MLAs (189 out of 403).
- Maharashtra follow UP with 146 tainted MLAs out of 287.
- Bihar holds 3rd place with 139 criminals amongst 241 MLAs.
- Small state like Jharkhand has 60 tainted MLAs out of 80 seats of their assembly.
Above criminal MPs/MLAs form 31% of the total votes. That means it is invariable for any President to have the support of these criminals, if at all he/she wants to be in the office of this pivotal position of the Indian society. It is a sheer mockery that the First Citizen of India can survive with the support of criminals and anti-social elements only.
To improve the election process, NEW has made certain valid suggestions…
- Candidates with proven criminal background to be banned from elections.
- A comprehensive Bill to regulate the inner democracy and financial transperancy of political parties.
- Ticket distribution to be made transperant.
- Books of Accounts of political parties to be audited by CAG.
- Political parties to be declared as Public Authorities and thereby making them accountable to public at large.
- Negative voting option to be made available in electronic voting machines.
I personally don’t feel that the above suggestions would be put in practice in near future.
General public of India always wants shortcuts to be available for them to quickly reach their ambitions. Political parties come handy for such quick fix solutions.