Prof. Trilochan Shastry

Coming Assembly Elections: Nature of parties and governance
Trilochan Sastry
Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore
and Founder Member, Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR)
January 20, 2007

The coming Assembly elections in the 5 States of Punjab, UP, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur once again bring into focus the nature of politics and governance today. In intellectual circles, the debate is about the ideology and policies of a party, and its stand on various issues like the free market, socialism, globalization, secularism, communalism, economic growth, poverty eradication and so on. They also evaluate how well policies and programs are implemented. In more informal circles, people talk about massive corruption in government, and the misuse of money and muscle power in elections. Fortunately, information on candidates is now available publicly, and it throws light on the quality of governance we can realistically expect. The recent Supreme Court Judgments of May 2002 and March 2003 now mandate such disclosure by all candidates.

Of the 102 seats in these 5 states, the major parties alone had 83 (81%) candidates formally charged with a crime. Many are accused of murder, attempt to murder, dacoity, forgery and financial fraud. Party leaders decide who gets a ticket to contest and are directly responsible for this state of affairs. Unfortunately, the situation is worse since there are many more Independent contestants who are similarly charged. It also does not include those who may indulge in fraud but have not been formally charged. The recent convictions of a Minister in the UPA government and an opposition MP are only the tip of the iceberg.

Lok Sabha 2004: Contestants from the 5 States going to the polls


UP
Punjab
Uttarakhand
Manipur
Goa
Overall
Total Seats
80
13
5
2
2
102
No. charged with crime
71
6
4
0
2
83
Percent
88.8%
46.2%
80.0%
0.0%
100.0%
81.4%

Uttar Pradesh, the State with the largest Vidhan Sabha (403) sends 80 members to the Lok Sabha. The Samajwadi Party (SP) fielded 66 candidates of which 22 had criminal charges against them, with 13 accused of violent crimes ranging from murder to dacoity. The BSP had 78, 21 and 15 respectively. The two major National political parties had 15% or less of candidates with criminal charges. Out of 293 candidates contesting on behalf of these four parties, 63 had criminal cases (21.5%), of which 34 contestants were accused of violent crimes.

In Punjab, out of 10 candidates from the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in the Lok Sabha 2004 Elections, 2 had criminal charges against them. The Shiromani Akali Dal (Mann) had 6 and 2, the Bharatiya Janata Party had 3 and 1, the Congress had 11 and 0, and SP had 3 and 0 respectively. Uttarakhand carved out of Uttar Pradesh has 5 Parliamentary Constituencies and 70 Vidhan Sabha seats. Out of 5 candidates put up by SP, 2 had criminal charges against them. The Shiv Sena had 2 and 1, and the CPI (ML), 3 and 1 respectively. A similar situation prevails in Manipur and Goa.

Lok Sabha 2004: Political Parties and Crime in the 5 States
Political Party
Total No. of Candidates
No. of Candidates with Criminal Charges
% of Candidates with Criminal Charges
Samajwadi Party
74
24
32.4%
Bahujan Samaj Party
78
21
26.9%
Indian National Congress
85
9
10.6%
Bharatiya Janata Party
83
13
15.7%
SAD
10
2
20.0%
SAD (Mann)
6
2
33.3%
Left
19
5
26.3%

The data also reveal that many candidates do not declare their PAN number and claim that they have nil or very little assets. Data from other Assembly elections held after May 2002 in Bihar, Maharashtra, AP, Gujarat, Karnataka, Orissa, Delhi, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and West Bengal clearly show that the level of criminalization and false declarations is far worse in the Assembly elections compared to the Lok Sabha polls.

Why are we in this situation and what kind of governance can we expect? Where do we go from here? Many analysts state publicly, and a few politicians privately, that mounting election expenses is the mother of all corruption since the crores spent by someone on getting elected have to be recovered after winning. Starting from Bofors, which was a mere Rs.64 crores, we moved to the Telgi scam, estimated to be in several tens of thousands of crores. Clearly, good governance cannot be a priority in this situation no matter what the ideology or policy. The few capable and honest leaders at the top have a Hobson’s choice: try for good governance from what they know is a corrupt system, or look outside the Government to the private sector. With such levels of corruption, privatization leads to an unholy nexus between money and political power as happened in several other countries. The rush for massive infrastructure projects perhaps opens up more avenues for large scale corruption. Good governance is therefore a sine qua non whether we opt for the free market or for a direct attack on poverty with distributive justice. Party leaders who themselves are not corrupt have to field clean, capable candidates. Some far sighted leader will have to call the bluff that voters only elect those who spend a lot of money. It remains to be seen whether the political system throws up that kind of visionary leadership first or whether public exposure and outcry forces them to change in the long run.