Almost one-quarter of the over 540 people
elected to India’s parliament this year face criminal
charges ranging from murder to extortion and even rape,
a study by an independent watchdog said.
MPs from almost all political parties
are involved, but half of the parliamentarians from a
powerful regional partner of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s
coalition are tainted by such charges, which if proved,
entail a minimum jail term of five years, the Bangalore-based
Public Affairs Centre said.
The report, obtained by Reuters on Wednesday,
is based on affidavits filed by politicians before they
fought polls to the lower house of parliament under a
new rule enforced by the Supreme Court to improve transparency
and probity in public life.
“It’s a shocking indictment
of the system that one-fourth of our elected representatives
to the highest democratic body have criminal cases against
them,” said Samuel Paul, chairman of the group which
has been campaigning for cleaner politics. The study gave
no figures but said 23.2 percent of all MPs had been served
criminal charges.
Singh has a squeaky-clean image, but his
Congress party-led minority government is crucially dependent
on a clutch of smaller groups, including the Rashtriya
Janata Dal which the report said had the most MPs embroiled
in cases of crime. Almost half of the party’s 23
MP’s were involved, it said.
Indian election laws allow politicians
facing criminal charges to run for public office, debarring
them only in case of convictions, which are rare in an
overloaded and imperfect judicial system. reuters
