Criminalisation of Politics

The topic is : Judiciary alone can weed out crime from politics.

It is a common perception that politics is the domain of criminals who after committing crimes join politics to sheild themselves from the law.This attitude is right to a large extent.Research and studies show that criminalisation of politics has made “joining the field ” derogatory.The present political scenario is such that the younger generation wants to keep off from politics. Politics is for criminals and criminals are meant to be in politics.This cannot be halted or averted because politics is a game of power.People enjoying power will always be at the political forefront.But it cannot be allowed to continue.

People argue in favour of judiciary weeding out crime from politics.But i do not think so.There is no use of putting people contesting elections with criminal background behind the bars as such people after being freed will find one way or the other to join or be associated with politics. Our country does not have any law to bar such people from contesting elections. Moreover,if judiciary were to declare that people who have even one case of bad conduct on their heads will not be allowed to be a part of the government ,then this is not feasible.These people wanting to join this line would get the cases dismissed by one way or the other and everything would be back to square one.Suppose, government takes the step of jailing criminal candidates and disallowing them to take part in elections ,then such people would return to nefarious activities once they are freed.BIMARU states in India lead in criminal politics. Especially in Bihar ,there is hardly a single MLA or MP who does not have a case registered against him.

Criminals joining politics have a strong base both power-wise and money-wise.Their criminal roots are deep amd they have spun a web of protection around themselves.They are so influential that they do not let law take any course of action against them.A very powerful Shiv Sena member once threatened the government that if he was arrested then the whole nation would burn and the court had to withdraw the order.Such is their influence of money and power.

Courts certainly cannot keep off criminals from politics because if that be the case ,then that would be a breach of fundamental rights and India being a democratic nation cannot afford to do so.So it is a shut case.

One may say that once the people with criminal background have served their punishments ,they may be allowed in politics but then what’s the guranteee that once they become the elected representatives they would not return to resuming their activities . The fact is that after getting elected ,they would do it on a large scaleand get scot free once in power.Therefore,this too cannot be implemented. The courts may find it dificult to keep a track of the record of every elected candidate if he or she has switched over to criminal ways.It is not easy to keep tabs on every individual.

The judiciary did make amendment laws but to no avail.There is no way by which the courts can put a full stop to crime in politics.