Corruption is endemic and once allowed to settle down assumes cancerous dimensions. India is not unknown to it, to put it mildly, and perhaps rates as one of the leading corrupt nations in the world. From the days of Pratap Singh Kairon, former Chief Minister of Punjab, many politicians have come under scanner. Many have come out, under dubious circumstances, without a speck of dirt on their shirt. But the question remains - it has penetrated all walks of life and the issue of who set the ball rolling is only of peripheral interest. Right now what is plaguing every honest citizen's mind is whether he can get anything through the layers of bureaucracy without waggling his pursestrings.
The latest news to hog the headlines was the cash for questions scam. Seventeen MPs were on the dock and
Tehelka, an independent investigative website and tabloid, did it again. Strangely, their last tehelka was to pin down
Corruption in the army and unwittingly a BJP leader too was caught in it. This time the search has come out with democratic results. MPs of centrist
parties such as the Congress and the BJP are in the net and the parties do not
know which way to look. It shows how vulnerable are the politicians who partly for the much touted reason of making money to compensate for the
election expenditure fall a prey to it. This despite the fact that the Election Commission has fixed ceilings on expenditure of
candidates and also the parties have been told to audit their accounts.
Ridiculouly the
public have started feeling that their representatives are more keen on getting paid for raising questions in Parliament than tackle issues with a level of probity. It is relieving to know that the BSP has taken some action to shake off the impact of their MPs indiscretion. Mayawati, its leader, has sacked the three MPs but this is not the end of the affair. There has to be some introspection and the party must think along the lines of not giving them tickets for the next elections or debar them totally. That is the highest degree of punishment one can think of giving them and also salvage the party's sttanding.
The point to be noted, however, is that both the BJP and Congress remained tightlipped on the affair for some time before waking up. Are we not entitled to know from the leading political parties in the pantheon about what they think or wish to do? MPs do not just represent their constituencies and articulate their needs but safeguard the dignity of the House. Over the last 60 years enquiry commissions have done mere paper work without nailing the culprits. Bofors probe got caught in procedural snags before reaching a deadend. Similar was the fate of corruption in the army which tehelka exposed but to this day nothing is known about it.
Finally the Election Commission also needs to take a serious look at the issue when it is brought to its notice. Candidates with criminal record no longer are qualified to represent the public. Electoral laws have become explicit on this point and some progress has been made. Is corruption not a criminal offence? It is, especially when the exchequer is robbed by some one adept enough at exploiting the loopholes in trade or law.
Perhaps a relook at the electoral laws to come down on such errant behaviour is needed now to
free the system from its own miscreants.
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