Rape accused were given party ticket for six Parliamentary seats, 27 Assembly seats
With political parties in the last five years giving Lok Sabha election ticket to six persons and State election ticket to 27 persons, who declared that they were charged with rape — and six MLAs with rape cases now actually representing people in the Assemblies — a demand has been raised that the practice of fielding people with criminal backgrounds be stopped forthwith.
It was in the backdrop of the outrage over Sunday’s gang-rape in Delhi and at a time when Parliament was seized of the matter, that National Election Watch (NEW) and the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) “looked at the background of our lawmakers [MPs and MLAs] with respect to rape cases and other crimes against women based on their self-sworn affidavits.”
The national coordinator for NEW and ADR Anil Bairwal; founder member and former IIM Ahmedabad professor Jagdeep Chhokar; and member and IIM Bangalore professor Trilochan Sastry said they “found that there are several lawmakers who have similar cases pending against them as per their last affidavit declaration to the Election Commission of India.”
The group said that in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the political parties gave ticket to six persons who declared that they had been charged with rape. They included one each from the RPP, the Revolutionary Communist Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and two Independents. During these polls, 34 other contestants declared that they had charges of crimes against women.
While Parliament is debating the issue, two of its members — one of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam from Tamil Nadu and the other of the All India Trinamool Congress from West Bengal — have also declared that they face charges, such as cruelty and intent to outrage a woman’s modesty.
The situation in the State elections is even worse.
As per the report of NEW and the ADR, “six MLAs have declared that they have charges of rape against them in their sworn affidavits submitted with the Election Commission of India at the time of their election. Of these six MLAs with declared rape cases, three are of the Samajwadi Party from Uttar Pradesh; and one each is of the Bahujan Samaj Party, from U.P., of the Bharatiya Janata Party from Gujarat; and of the Telugu Desam Party from Andhra Pradesh.
Of the 27 candidates who have rape cases against them and were yet given party ticket for State elections, 10 were from Uttar Pradesh and five from Bihar.
Apart from these, the group said, “36 MLAs have declared that they have other charges of crimes against women such as outraging the modesty of a woman, assault, insulting the modesty of a woman” registered against them.
Of these, six are from the Congress, five from the BJP, and three from the Samajwadi Party. Incidentally, Uttar Pradesh has the maximum number of such MLAs at eight; followed by Orissa and West Bengal with seven MLAs each.
The group said “by giving ticket to candidates who have been charged with crimes against women especially rape, political parties have been in a way abetting circumstances that lead to such events that they so easily but vehemently condemn in Parliament.”
It has thus demanded that “candidates with a criminal background should be debarred from contesting elections” and “cases against MPs and MLAs should be fast-tracked and decided in a time-bound manner.”
The Hindu : News / National :
Following report by AFP
NEW DELHI: At least 20 men accused of raping women ran in Indian elections in the last five years, according to a think-tank report published amid growing outrage over the gang-rape of a student on a bus.
The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) study was released on Thursday as political parties lined up to condemn the rape of the 23-year-old woman, which has triggered widespread protests against how women are treated in India.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi and opposition lawmakers have condemned the savage assault last Sunday but the ADR said many Indian parties fielded candidates who were facing rape accusations.
“Since 2007, political parties gave tickets to 20 rape accused to fight in state elections. This is shocking and requires urgent action,” Jagdeep Chhokar, the founder of ADR, said.
“The politicians who come out to condemn rape are the ones who are openly giving the rape accused a chance to fight elections. This is hypocrisy,” he told AFP.
The report stated that political parties had also given tickets to 260 men who were charged with other crimes against women, including molestation.It did not record how many of the accused candidates had been found guilty.
“Political parties should stop giving tickets to candidates with criminal backgrounds and all those lawmakers who are accused in rape cases should be thrown out of power,” Chhokar added.
Further protests were held in New Delhi on Friday, with scores of female demonstrators marching to the president’s palace.
The rape victim was coerced onto the off-duty bus and raped by six men before being thrown off the vehicle.
She was seriously injured and remains in intensive care.
Five people, including the bus driver, have so far been arrested.