The Hindu Business Line : Stop shamming, start slamming

One is truly mystified as to the message that the BJP was wanting to convey by bringing both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha to a halt on November 29, ostensibly, to put the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, in a spot for having re-inducted Mr Shibu Soren into the Cabinet as the Coal Minister when he was undergoing trial in criminal cases for assorted grave offences, one of which has ended just a few days ago in his being convicted of murder.

It never seemed to have struck the BJP leaders that using something that is now old hat to stall the business of Parliament will only result in their losing, in the eyes of the people, whatever claims they may make to being a responsible and trustworthy political party. For, instead of impressing the people, the distasteful display will be seen as nothing more than a political stunt.

Meretricious argument

For starters, it is not as if the NDA Government under Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee did not include Ministers who were facing criminal charges. Criminal cases are criminal cases, and the moment the Court finds it necessary, on the strength of prima facie evidence, to frame charges, the taint attaches. It is a meretricious argument that BJP's `tainted' Ministers in Mr Vajpayee's Cabinet were somehow more acceptable because their crimes were part of a national Ram Janmabhoomi `movement', and the `taint' of UPA's Ministers is for real for reasons of their being charged with murder, embezzlement and corruption. The BJP could have rightfully claimed the high moral ground to stage the hoo-ha in both Houses if Mr Vajpayee had awaited the Court's verdict before inducting as Ministers those who were undergoing criminal trial.

Unfortunately, in regard to weeding out criminals and undesirable elements from the political arena, especially barring their entry into national and State legislatures, it is not just the BJP, but the political class in general that has been adopting an attitude reeking with self-righteousness and double standards.

What a spirited rearguard action was mounted by the political class as a whole, regardless of party affiliations, against attempts to instil accountability and transparency in the form of affidavits showing their candidates' criminal antecedents and moveable and immoveable assets! But for the unyielding combined effort made by the civil society, the Election Commission and the Supreme Court, this salutary reform would not have seen the light of day.

People's demand

Even now all the political parties are united in creating an illusion that a number of wrongs can make everything right.

By a kind of tacit agreement among themselves, they are stolidly keeping mum over the proposals sent by the Election Commission sent to the Government in July 2004, suggesting ban on candidates against whom Courts have framed charges, simplification of procedures for disqualifying candidates found guilty of corrupt practices, limiting each candidate to contest in only one seat, providing for negative voting, strengthening the provisions for registration and re-registration of political parties, requiring compulsory maintenance of accounts by political parties and audit of such accounts, making false declarations in connection with elections an electoral offence, and so on.

We, the people, demand of political parties to enact them into law, instead of enacting the ugly scenes marked by a holier-than-thou make-believe.

B. S. RAGHAVAN

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