#mp's

New Post has been published on http://www.chiangraitimes.com/nearly-43-of-indias-newly-elected-politicians-facing-serious-criminal-charges.html

Nearly 43% of India's Newly Elected Politicians Facing Serious Criminal Charges

NEW DELHI – India’s recent national election delivered a historic victory to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party, but also exposed the influence of money, power and questionable morality on the world’s largest democracy.

Nearly 43% of the new members of the lower house of Parliament that convenes Monday for the first time since the election won despite facing criminal charges. More than a quarter of those relate to rape, murder or attempted murder, according to a report by the civic group Association of Democratic Reforms.

The loophole that allows them to take office is that they have not been convicted — in part because the Indian legal system has a huge backlog of an estimated 30 million cases and trials often last decades. When asked about the charges against them, they invariably accuse a political rival of framing them.

Since such rivalries often lead to false accusations, the main political parties say it would be unfair to bar people from contesting elections unless they have been convicted by court.

Under existing laws, only those who have been sentenced to prison for two years or more can be barred from elections.

Members of Parliament with criminal backgrounds is not a new phenomenon in India, but despite Modi’s campaign vow in 2014 to clean up corruption and the influence of money in politics, the problem appears to be only growing worse.

In the 2004 national election, the percentage of candidates with pending criminal cases was 24%, which rose to 33% in 2009, 34% in 2014 and 43% this year, said Shahabuddin Y. Quraishi, a former chief election commissioner.

The Association of Democratic Reforms found that 116 of the 303 lawmakers from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party elected last month face criminal charges, including one for alleged terrorism.

Pragya Singh Thakur, who won a seat from Bhopal in central India, is awaiting trial in connection with a 2008 explosion in Malegaon in western India that killed seven people.

Twenty-nine of the opposition Congress party’s 52 lawmakers face serious charges.

“This trend has been growing in India, leaving no political party untouched. We need to educate voters not to elect these people,” said Jagdeep S. Chhokar, ADR’s founder.

“What the Indian state has been unable to provide, strongmen promise to deliver to people in their area of influence, using gun and money power,” said Lennin Rasghuvanshi, a coordinator with the People’s Union for Civil Liberties.

Starting in the 1960s and ’70s, some Indian politicians began turning to the criminal underworld for cash to win votes.

“In due course, the criminals started thinking that these politicians were winning because of their money or crimes so why shouldn’t they become lawmakers themselves? If they are people running from the police, they know that when they became lawmakers, the same police will protect them,” Quraishi said.

In Uttar Pradesh state in northern Indian, former mafia don Mukhtar Ansari has been elected to the state assembly five times despite more than 40 criminal cases pending against him, including murder.

Another don-turned-politician, Hari Shankar Tiwari, also of Uttar Pradesh, has been a member of the legislative assembly for 23 years, even winning an election while being detained on murder charges.

During the campaign, Election Commission officials and government agencies seized mountains of cash, alcohol, gold and silver, saris and expensive watches in the offices of political parties that were intended as gifts in exchange for votes.

The total value of the seized goods was $500 million, including $120 million in cash — nearly three times what was found in the 2014 general election, according to the Election Commission.

Analysts say that political parties seem to prize electability over ethics.

“They think that people with criminal backgrounds have more chances to win because of their money and muscle power,” Qureshi said.

In the days of paper ballots before electronic voting machines were introduced, gangs would use brute force to take over polling stations to rig the vote.

One reason for the increasing number of criminal suspects going into politics is the sheer cost of elections. In the general election that concluded in May, political parties and candidates are estimated to have spent about $8.65 billion. That’s double the amount in the 2014 election, according to a report by the Center for Media Studies in New Delhi.

The report said the Bharatiya Janata Party was the biggest spender, accounting for about 45% of the total. The Congress party accounted for between 15% and 20%.

Analysts say a key cause of corruption is the way political parties are funded in India. Parties are permitted to receive foreign funds, any company can donate any amount of money to any political party, and any individual, group or company can donate money anonymously through electoral bonds.

Donors do not need to disclose the party they have donated to, nor does the party have to reveal the source of its money.

Quraishi is calling for more transparency in campaign funding as well as a cap on election spending.

“The people want transparency, the donor wants secrecy. Whose wish should prevail?” he said.

By Ashok Sharmer The Associated Press

India’s MPs Face Serious Criminal Charges

Surely I'm now not the only person getting fed up with reading or hearing about all this political sex stuff! I'm in no way dismissing any claim where there is very clear and incontrovertible proof; and it absolutely HAS to be incontrovertible proof, which leads to a conviction of criminal wrongdoing.

But just like some aspects of the Operation Yewtree case, and the Dolphin Square inquiry; as well as cases involving Lord Bramall, Sir Edward Heath, Leon Brittan and Harvey Proctor, the so-called Westminster sex scandal which currently provides our national media with copy selling headlines has become a feeding frenzy of allegations, obfuscation and conflation, the waters of clarification have become so muddied with interjection from such a wide variety of sources we've developed our own version of a Trump swamp for draining, and clueless as to how this will be achieved.

With no pun intended the knee jerk reactions so far by party officials has been to find some of those accused of the slightest hint of impropriety guilty before full and thorough investigation has been carried out, and where off the cuff innuendo and general banter has been conflated to the level of a full-on sexual assault.

I find it beyond bizarre that MP-Charlie Elphicke was reported to the police by his party without even being advised as to the allegation being made against him, and then subsequently suspended. For what? Not that we have evidence either way yet, but to all intents and purposes Charlie Elphicke's political career, along with many others, could be ruined on the basis of something which may have never happened at all. Or has been blown out of all proportion.

Parliament has always been a career venue where knife sharpening (and subsequent use) is rife, political competitiveness pervades, and where those who inhabit it on a daily basis are both sinners and saints in one way or another. In such a place where thinking who can outsmart who to grab the upper hand is de rigeur on the career ladder and power is the ultimate goal, should we be in the least bit surprised that the boundaries between political and other shenanigans are of the nth degree? I think not.

Our media are jumping up and down with the excitement of each revelation to emerge with the enthusiasm of discovering something entirely new, while putting to one side the fact that Parliament has been a hotbed of sex since time immemorial and has enabled our news barons to become multi millionaires on the back of such stories over the years, and is something Don Henley captured so well in his news parody track 'Dirty Laundry' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHimia_Fxzs)

It's to this end that we find broadcaster and journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer's comment regarding deposed Minister #Michael-Fallon making headline news when she clearly stated that, "she did not feel like she was a victim of a sexual assault, and found the incident nothing more than “mildly amusing”.

Parliamentary journalists are, in the normal course of daily events, privy to all manner of information as to who is doing what because the corridors of power are rife with stories. But do these reports ever make the pages of our daily viewing? No. Not at all.Simply because life in Westminster is the kind of bubble where things are ignored until such time as a worthy headline can be made from it and a story which feeds the public appetite for a juicy piece of salaciousness is reported. Or the ready sharpened knives have dug deep enough to take their unlucky recipient down in headline making style; such as in the case of Fallon.

Only this week I read that Home Secretary Amber Rudd was on the list as having a “workplace relationship with Kwasi Kwarteng”, another Tory MP. She is not accused of any misconduct. Any prior news of this we were made aware of? No. Or, Minister Jake Berry because he “impregnated Boris Johnson’s office manager” Alice Robinson, even though the couple have lived together for some time and do not hide their relationship. Sorry folks. Stories of this kind simply don't make for an interesting enough read to set our emotions on a white knuckle ride of mixed emotions and flaring tempers.

Veteran former Tory MP and frontbencher Ann Widdecombe hit the political nail on the head this week when she called out women speaking up against sexual harassment at Westminster, labelling them as "wimpish, and helpless little snowflakes."

Speaking to Radio-Times, Mrs Widdecombe said: "I can’t believe women are being so wimpish, wallowing in self-pity, expecting the men always to protect us.

"This wasn’t what the women’s lib that I signed up to in the 70s was about. We weren’t helpless little snowflakes then, we’d have dealt with any man who actually went too far or even tried to go too far."

The Labour party has also been affected by the latest scandal, with MPs Kelvin Hopkins and Clive Lewis currently under internal investigation for alleged inappropriate conduct.

Mr Lewis "vigorously" denied the claims, saying: "I'm feeling pretty taken aback by it all. I'm a friendly person, I'm someone who enjoys the company of people and it saddens me that I will now have to think about standing back, about being more formal."

From my own perspective I'm very much of the Widdecombe ilk in my own thinking where this latest "scandal" is concerned, and for me at least it all stems back to the birth of 'New Labour', the 'metrosexual man' and the beginning of an over sensitiveness which has somehow spawned a generation of people with victim mentality who feel a sense of entitlement when it comes to taking offense, conflating trivia to a level out of all proportion which makes a story all about them rather than the greater and real issues of actual criminal magnitude, and leads to a secure conviction of those who are found by a court to be guilty as charged.