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Can We Stop People With Criminal Cases from Becoming Legislators?

By:  Tupaki Desk   |   18 Aug 2022 8:39 AM GMT
Can We Stop People With Criminal Cases from Becoming Legislators?
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The State Assemblies and the Parliament house have a big role to play in a democracy. The legislators elected by the voters discuss various issues and make laws for the public. Sadly, legislators with criminal backgrounds are entering the houses which has now turned into a big concern.

Despite the activists fighting hard on this, there is not much difference. The Supreme Court also left the option of making laws to stop legislators with criminal backgrounds from entering the houses. At regular intervals, people are expressing concerns about legislators with criminal backgrounds getting party tickets.

Bring back the discussion on this, a recently formed Cabinet has the majority of legislators with such background. Around 70 percent of legislators have criminal cases pending against them as per the affidavits they submitted.

It is known that Bihar saw a change in the government with Nitish Kumar retaining his post. After ditching the Bharatiya Janata Party, Nitish Kumar joined hands with other opposition parties and formed the government. After swearing in as the Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar formed the Cabinet and the Ministers took the oath.

The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which bats for setting persons from criminal backgrounds out of politics said that more than 70 percent of Cabinet members have criminal cases pending against them.

As if it is now enough, the new Law Minister in Bihar is the prime accused in a kidnapping case and he is even facing arrest. Kartikeya Singh, who is an MLC from the Rashtriya Janata Dal is the prime accused in a kidnapping case that was reported in 2014. The has been going on since then and an arrest warrant is also pending against him.

On the day he was supposed to get arrested, he took oath as the Law Minister. Imagine the irony, a person who was supposed to be present before the court is now serving as the Law Minister.

Almost every party says that it is fighting against the crime culture. But the reality is that every party has legislators who are facing criminal cases including kidnaps and sexual crimes. No one knows if we can keep legislators with the criminal background out of politics.