Bihar voters elect huge number of gangsters into politics

Patna: The attempts by the Election Commission to check the entry of gangsters into politics has suffered badly once again with the Bihar voters electing a record number of criminals as their representatives in the just held state elections.

According to a report of election watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Election Watch, as many as 163 lawmakers out of total 243 getting elected to the new House have declared criminal cases. The total percentage of such lawmakers this time is 68 which is 10 per cent more than their number in the previous Bihar assembly. In the previous House, 142 state lawmakers or 58 per cent lawmakers faced criminal charges.

As per ADR report which analysed the affidavits of the candidates, of the 163 elected lawmakers having criminal antecedents, 123 face serious criminal charges such as murder, attempts to murder and violence against women.

“What is alarming is that such lawmakers are not limited to any particular political parties but have won elections for all political parties,” state coordinator for Bihar Election Watch Rajiv Kumar said.

According to their study, a maximum of 73 per cent such lawmakers belong to the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), followed by 64 per cent by the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), 47 per cent by Janata Dal United (JD-U) whereas the Congress party has only 17 per cent of such lawmakers.

The development looks indeed alarming given the efforts launched by India’s poll body to check criminalisation of politics ahead of the elections. The Election Commission in the light of the Supreme Court’s ruling this time ordered all the political parties to publish on their websites, social media handles and in national newspapers the details of criminal cases pending against the candidates they are giving tickets along with the reasons that compelled them to field suspected criminals over decent persons with the objectives to make voters know about such candidates.

“It shall be mandatory for political parties (at the Central and State election level) to upload on their website detailed information regarding the individuals with pending criminal cases (including the nature of the offences, and relevant particulars such as whether charges have been framed, the concerned Court, the case number, etc) who have been selected as candidates, along with the reasons for such selection, as also as to why other individuals without criminal antecedents could not be selected as candidates,” India’s top court had said in its four-page judgement delivered in February this year.

Yet another interesting thing about this election is that although the RJD headed by Lalu Prasad emerged as the single largest party in the 243-member Bihar House, it is the Janata Dal United (JD-U) leader Nitish Kumar who will stay in power despite his party getting third slot in the matter of having number of seats in the Bihar assembly.

The RJD remained on the top in matter of seat tally this time again with the party winning a total of 75 seats (with total vote percentage of 23.11) whereas the BJP got the second position winning 74 seats having vote percentage of 19.46. The JD-U, on the other hand, finished the distant third with 43 seats getting 15.39 per cent votes.

According to poll observers, what went against the RJD was the “Jungle Raj” tag attached with its 15-year-old regime when it was led by Lalu Prasad and his wife Rabri Devi. Although the RJD-led Grand Alliance’s chief ministerial candidate Tejashwi Yadav took extra care to focus on the issues of common men, such as unemployment and migration, the ruling National Democratic Alliance launched extensive campaigns against him and whipped up “Jungle Raj” fears among the voters, reminding them how the state could slip into another phase of lawlessness if the RJD was voted to power.

All though the month-long poll campaign, the ruling NDA leaders—from chief minister Nitish Kumar to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, focussed on this particular issue and kept reminding the voters about this. Especially, the Prime Minister looked more ruthless in his attack on the RJD. He not only described Tejashwi as “Jungle Raj ka Yuvraj” (prince of Jungle Rule) but also accused the RJD of “having the copyright for kidnapping”.

Experts said the entry of Modi into Bihar poll campaign upturned RJD applecart as was evident from the performance of the Grand Alliance in the election. The Grand Alliance which bagged 51 seats out of total 71 where polling was held in the first phase could win only 59 seats out of total 172 that went to polls in the second and third phases.