India's people want to look ahead, but our politics and policies hark back to the past. Major national political parties sounded the bugle for the forthcoming elections over the weekend, it was depressing to see none of the them articulate a vision for India going forward. If one party invokes Gandhi, the other invokes Nehru and Indira. We still have time to alter the agenda for the elections. And I hope the discussion will be about next 5 years rather than previous 60. Because India deserves better.
New agenda in ongoing General Election 2009 - Prisoners can stand for an election in India but can not vote.
Does This make any sense? The Constitution of India and the representation of the Peoples Act provide basic foundation of the Electoral System in India. Since India is a democratic country, the office of the Chief Election Commissioner plays a vital role in the election system of the Nation. It is very common to say but it is a fact that a person, who is not convicted and who is simply under trial, simply a prisoner cannot caste his vote from jail or otherwise from a place where he is detained but he can very well contest election from jail. Is it not a flashy or mockery of law that who cannot caste his vote but he can become an M.P. M.L.A. or Minister.
There are several instances in our country, where people have contested elections, while in jail, and some of them have also won
and become M.L.A.'s or M.P's, very strange to hear though.....
If u know Mohammad Shahabuddin, one of India's most notorious Criminal-Politicians, is the Member of Parliament from Siwan, Bihar, with the Rashtriya Janata Dal party of Lalu Prasad Yadav. He is currently serving a life sentence for kidnapping with intent to murder, and is facing trial in more than thirty criminal cases including eight of murder, twenty of attempted murder, as well as kidnapping, extortion, etc he is part of the ruling United Progressive Alliance government of Manmohan Singh. So question here is why this was allowed then... are the laws in India made for common man ? or for criminals ...
Close to 2 lakh citizens in the country are eligible to vote but cannot. And it is not because they do not have voter ID cards. It is an irony in our election law, which states that You can contest elections in India behind bars, if your conviction is less than 2 years. But you cannot vote. And that is because the Representation Of People Act under Section 62(5) does not allow prisoners to exercise their franchise. Of the 3 lakh prisoners in the country, only about 30 percent have been convicted and are serving sentences. The rest are undergoing trial.
The ban on voting strangely does not apply to those under preventive detention. So for instance, a notorious person detained under the Goondas Act, can cast his ballot. But a person imprisoned for a relatively minor offence cannot vote. It defies the constitution. It defies common sense. And how can you treat those under preventive detention differently from under trials ?? it makes completly no-sense.
Its really a very hard time for India, to stand on its toes, otherwise days are not so far to see situation like in Pakistan here. An MP should have leadership quality and should be approachable. I would say there should be a law to qualify for contesting election, otherwise country would face serious leadership problem. Many people are there to represent our contry with vision. A need for the youth is the need for country. Our PM and President should act not just to manage their chair.
It is no doubt true that the criminalization of Politics is a matter of hot discussion throughout the Nation and all attempts are being made to check it and ensure that at least no criminal should be allowed either to contest election or to caste his vote. Very recently, pushing ahead with its agenda of keeping criminals out of politics, the Election Commission has suggested that any person convicted of a crime for more than six months be debarred from contesting elections for six years. Hopes so it gets in paper soon.
I guess one day India will get clean image MP's and MLA'a, When we say clean image, we mean corruption as well as no criminal
background. In the present case we don't seem to have too many leaders who qualify to be the PM of our country.
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