Zor se Bol

India General Elections 2009 is just months away and while political parties gear up their campaign to promote themselves, there is a new campaign going around the cyber world – Campaign for clean politics, campaign against criminals into the politics and campaign to request young and youthful to come forward and lead the country.

One of such campaign is launched by Forum for Clean Politics under the Public Interest Foundation will have a three-pronged strategy to ban the entry of criminals in our political system.

In the first step, it will urge political parties not to give ticket to candidates with criminal antecedents. Then, it will apprise voters about the criminal history of candidates from their constituency through blogs, advertisements, social networking sites and SMSes. In the third step, the voters will be requested not to support any political party, which will field candidates with criminal background.

Dr Bimal Jalan, Chairman, Public Interest Foundation and former RBI governor said, “Criminals are the safest bet because they have higher winnability. But it’s time that we make wrong people feel that they are wrong and they don’t deserve to be a part of the government.”

“The cynicism against politics among the general masses has further deepened the problem,” Dr Jalan said.

Speaking on the occasion, Rajya Sabha MP and auto tycoon Rahul Bajaj said: “Governments are just the reflection of the people they rule because ultimately they elect their representatives.”

“Let’s not prevaricate. I have never heard any politician saying we want to give ticket to a criminal. Yes, there have been cases but you cannot generalise that all politicians are criminals,” Bajaj said.

“Being public figures politicians are easy targets. It’s very easy to get an FIR registered against a politician,” the eminent industrialist said.

According to the data provided by National Election Watch, of the 543 MPs in the Lok Sabha, 128 have “confessed” to cases pending against them in various courts of the country. There are 24 charges of murder or attempted murder among various accusations.

“The country never deserved the government it had. We must make sure that people who are running the government must not have a single person among them who doesn’t deserve to be there,” said legal luminary Fali S Nariman.

In its endeavor, the campaign has already partnered with several NGOs, intelligentsia, academicians and industry bodies. Association for Democratic Reforms and National Election Watch will provide data.

Source: Mid-day, NoCriminals.ORG