Bitter Truth of Indian Democracy

Everyone of you must read this Blog very seriously and say whether Parliament of India really represent Temple of Democracy?


Can you dream of Strong Lokpal Bill from a Parliament where considerable number of Members of Parliament are facing criminal charges? 

Poll officers raise pitch against ‘money power’

Published in Indian Express on 2nd of July 2012

The Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Gujarat on Sunday said that use of “money power is the main problem” during polls.

Addressing a workshop organised in the run-up to the Assembly elections, CEO Anita Karwal said that “direct intelligence” from the public can help counter any malpractices during elections, including misuse of money.

Director General (Expenditure) of Election Commission P K Dash said efforts are being made to control the use of illicit money in elections. “There is a great need to reduce the role of money in elections as it creates an uneven playing field; it vitiates democracy,” he said.

“There is also a risk of foreign funding for political parties to destabilise the polity and use of money for bribing of MLAs for Rajya Sabha elections,” he added.

The meet was convened by the Gujarat Election Watch (GEW), the state chapter of National Election Watch — a conglomeration of over 1,200 civil society organisations working on political and electoral reforms.

GEW co-ordinator Jagdeep Chhokar said their initiative

to check criminal elements in politics and misuse of money during elections was launched today and they would be working with the Election Commission on various poll-related issues.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/poll-officers-raise-pitch-against-money-power/969264/

Congress raises Rs 1,662 crore in 5 years, BJP Rs 852 crore

Pradeep Thakur, TNN | Jul 11, 2012, 02.28AM IST

NEW DELHI: India's GDP growth rate may have dropped in the past few years but that has had little impact on the bottomlines of the country's leading political parties. The coffers of the main parties have been swelling, with the richest amongst them, the ruling Congress, having made a cool Rs 1,662 crore in the last five years till 2011-12 and the BJP in second place with Rs 852 crore.

Not surprisingly, the highest income for these parties came in 2009, when parliamentary elections were held. According to Income Tax returns of these parties, Congress's annual income went up from Rs 220 crore in 2008-09 to Rs 497 crore in 2009-10. In the next two years, the party raked in almost Rs 400 crore per year.

Similarly, BJP's income swelled to Rs 220 crore in 2009-10, up from Rs 124 crore a year earlier. It touched Rs 258 crore in 2010-11.

Last year (2011-12), when economic growth slowed down again - the GDP plummeting to 6.9% from a high of 8.4% in the previous two years - both parties registered a dip in collections. While the Congress made Rs 307 crore, down from Rs 468 crore the previous year, the BJP's collection saw a Rs 90 crore drop, settling at Rs 168 crore.
All major parties continue to source most of their funds from unidentified donors, according to the I-T returns. The donors' lists and returns of the Congress, BJP, NCP and BSP show that these parties have not disclosed the names of entities who account for a major chunk of their funding.

The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which has been campaigning for transparency in funding of political parties and has obtained these I-T returns, has written to the Central Board of Direct Taxes demanding a probe into undisclosed contributions to parties, which constitute up to 90% of their total collections.

"It has been more than a year and the CBDT has not yet responded to our request though they had promised to look into the matter," said Anil Bairwal, coordinator of ADR. He said the sources and flow of such donations needed to be tracked to curb black money infiltrating into the coffers of political parties.

BSP, the party led by former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Dalit icon Mayawati, stands third in the list of parties with the highest collections. Its income went up from Rs 70 crore in 2008-09 to Rs 182 crore in the election year 2009.

In five years till 2011-12, Mayawati's party received more than Rs 425 crore, mostly through cash donations. It has revealed little about its contributors claiming most donations were below Rs 20,000 and thus exempt under election rules from mandatory disclosure. Some time ago, the party had subverted I-T department's moves to unearth its donors, successfully arguing that all its cash contributions were made by poor supporters out of love and affection for the party leader.

Bairwal said the Congress, which claimed to have collected at least Rs 978 crore through sale of coupons in the five years till 2008-09, did not provided any contributors' list for this collection. It provided details of contributors who together accounted for a paltry Rs 85 crore during this period.

Surprisingly, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has left behind the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party and Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party in generating funds. CPM stood fourth in the list, having collected Rs 335 crore in the five years up to 2011-12. SP made only Rs 200 crore during this period and NCP was far behind with Rs 140 crore.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Congress-raises-Rs-1662-crore-in-5-years-BJP-Rs-852-crore/articleshow/14813246.cms?intenttarget=no

31% MPs and MLAs voting in presidential election have criminal records

Ashish Tripathi, TNN | Jul 12, 2012, 06.38PM IST

LUCKNOW: As many as 31% members of parliament (MPs) legislators (MLAs/MLCs) who will cast vote in presidential election have criminal cases pending against them in police record and 48% are crorepatis, according to study done by the National Election Watch (NEW) and Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), bodies representing over 1200 civil society groups working o n electoral reforms, improving democracy and governance in India for the last several years. 

The total number of MPs 776 are and legislators are 4120. These MPs and legislators (taken together the number is 4896) constitute the Electoral College which votes in the presidential elections. Each member of the Electoral College has votes in proportion to the population of the state he/she represents. 

The NEW and ADR analysed the affidavits of 4835 members of the Electoral College, which includes 772 MPs and 4063 legislators from all the state of India. 

The analysis revealed that 1448 members 31% have criminal cases against them. They had declared criminal cases in an affidavit filed with the Election Commission of India (ECI) at the time of nomination for various elections. 

Out of these 1448 members who have declared criminal cases, 641 have declared serious criminal cases like rape, murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, robbery, extortion etc. 

Six MPs/MLAs/MLCs have declared rape charges in their affidavits. They are Kandikunta Venkata Prasad of TDP from Kadiri constituency in Andhra Pradesh, Jethabhai G Ahir of BJP from Shehra constituency in Gujarat, Mohammad Aleem Khan of BSP from Bulandshahar constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Anoop Sanda of SP from Sultanpur constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Manoj Kumar Paras of SP from Nagina constituency in Uttar Pradesh and Shri Bhagwan Sharma of SP from Debai constituency in Uttar Pradesh. 

There are 141 MPs/MLAs/MLCs who have murder charges against them, 352 have attempt to murder charges, 145 have theft charges, 90 have kidnapping charges and 75 have dacoity charges. 

Kameshwar Baitha, Lok Sabha MP from Palamau of JMM has declared the highest number of criminal cases, (35) followed by Pradeep Maharathy, BJD MLA from Odisha from Pipili constituency with 26 cases and Pradip Kumar of JD (U), MLA from Bihar from Warsaliganj constituency with 18 cases. The charges against these politicians are related to murder, attempt to murder, dacoity, theft, kidnapping etc. 

Based on the number of votes that these tainted MPs/MLAs/MLCs represent (31%) of total 1089287 votes. 

While 30% of Lok Sabha members had declared criminal cases against them at the time of filing nomination for election, 16% Rajya Sabha members have criminal record. A mong state assemblies, Uttar Pradesh has the maximum number of legislators with declared criminal cases (189 out of 403 MLAs) followed by Maharashtra (146 out of 287 MLAs analysed) and Bihar (139 out of 241 MLAs analysed). However, in terms of percentage of 'tainted' votes among state assemblies, Jharkhand has the highest tainted votes with 74% followed by Bihar with 58% and Maharashtra - 51%. 

Further, a total of 2322 (48%) out of 4835 MPs/MLAs analysed are crorepatis as per their self sworn affidavits submitted at the time of nomination for contesting elections. When translated into votes, a total of 54% votes are of crorepati MPs/MLAs. Amongst state assemblies, Uttar Pradesh has the maximum number of crorepati votes followed by Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. In terms of percentage, Goa has the highest percentage of crorepatis voters (92%) followed by Punjab (86%) and Haryana (72%). 

As per the data from ECI, out of the total 4896 MPs/MLAs who are entitled to vote, only 418 or 9% are women. Based on the number of votes the MPs/MLAs are entitled to vote, the total number of women votes is 10% or 113145 out of 1098882 votes. Among MPs, Lok Sabha has 11% women votes and Rajya Sabha 10%. Among State assemblies, West Bengal has the maximum amount of women votes with 12231 votes out of 44394 (34 out of 294 MLAs), followed by Uttar Pradesh with 6656 votes out of 83824(32 out of 403 MLAs) and Bihar with 5882 votes out of 42039 (34 out of 243 MLAs). In terms of percentage, among state assemblies, the highest percentage of women votes is from Bihar with 14% followed by Rajasthan with 14% and West Bengal 12%.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/31-MPs-and-MLAs-voting-in-presidential-election-have-criminal-records/articleshow/14850895.cms?intenttarget=no&fb_source=message

When they (criminals ) can be a Member of Parliament until their charges are not proved by court , why not Kasab can also contest an election because his charges are also not proved till date? 

Why to blame Daud or any other terrorists whose charges have not yet been porved?

Kauwa se Khet Ki Rakhwali nahi ho sakti. 

It says looters cannot be assigned the duty of protecting the assets.It means corrupt person cannot make a law which will send them into Jail.

Bitter truth is that Cases of crime , rape,murder or any nature are not decided by judiciary in two or three decades and finally closed in want of witnesses who during the course of time die or killed and hence judiciary indirectly allow criminal to hold the key  post till the time crime against the person is proved. It means delayed justice helps in perpetuation of criminal activities.To make it more clear , criminals are indirectly using weak judiciary to perpetuate their corrupt game.

Neither court acts in time nor criminal can be removed from key post. It may be the case of Kalmadi, or Raja, or Chidambram or Manmohan Singh or any other person facing criminal cases and sitting in Indian Parliament or state assemblies.

Politicians in their usual style play political kabbaddi and voters are always victimized and forced to suffer the pain caused by the misdeeds , corruption and evil works of politicians holding power.there is none to listen to grievances of common men , neither Neta nor court or police .

It is ironical and unfortunate too that asset and bank balance of of political parties and politicians rise by leaps and bounds and  they acquire crores of rupees in no time without doing any business or service.

And on the contrary of poverty of common men or voters in general continue to rise and their pain continue to become intolerable .

Politicians grow and grow in wealth but voters continue to become poorer and poorer. 

Is this the true target of Democracy or the Indian Parliament?

God only knows when Indian politicians will get success or will really initiate the process of desired electoral and judicial reform?

How long voters will be cheated by politicians through false promises in the name of democracy or secularism is a question which every citizen of India should try to answer.