Why do we vote?

There is corruption and criminality in politics, but that’s no reason to shun elections

Democracy means government by consent, and we, the people, express our consent through the Vote. Our Vote gives legitimacy to those we elect to govern us. This is a perfectly valid answer to the question, “Why do we vote?” But there is another question to ask: Why, at all, do we vote? Especially when the choice before us is either a corrupt politician or a criminal. There is an 80 per cent chance that he would be a crorepati, who made it big only by being a politician, and there is a 40 per cent chance that he would be a criminal who graduated into politics. Some of them are both crorepatis and criminals, hence the overlap in percentages. Don’t take my word for it. It’s all there in the documents submitted by the candidates to the Election Commission, which is then collated and analysed by a public-spirited organisation called the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

Money and Muscle Power

In the elections (both Lok Sabha and state Assembly elections) since 2008, of the 4,807 elected members (MPs and MLAs), 1,460 (30 per cent) had declared criminal cases against them at the time of contesting polls, of which 688 (14 per cent) had declared serious criminal cases. ‘Serious’ refers to crimes such as
murder, rape, kidnapping and extortion, etc.

In the 17th Lok Sabha, nearly 43 per cent of the MPs have a criminal record. Out of the 539 winners, 233 MPs have declared criminal cases against them. Around 159 (29 per cent) of them have serious criminal cases related to murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, and crimes against women. The BJP has 116 MPs with criminal cases, followed by 29 MPs of the Congress, 13 of the JDU, 10 of the DMK, and 9 of the TMC, as per ADR data. 87 of those BJP MPs, 19 of the Congress, 6 of the DMK, 4 of the TMC, and 8 of the JDU have declared ‘serious’ criminal cases against them. Around 29 MPs have declared cases related to ‘hate speech’.
One BJP MP -- Pragya Thakur -- is charged with terrorism.

Why do political parties field a ‘criminal’ candidate? Milan Vaishnav in his book, Money and Muscle Power in Indian Politics, noted that “in the general elections of 2004, 2009 and 2014, a candidate with a criminal case was almost three times more likely to win the election than a ‘clean’ candidate.’” To break it down further, at the state Assembly elections level, a clean candidate had a 6 per cent chance of winning while a ‘criminal politician’ had an 18 per cent chance of winning. At the level of Lok Sabha elections, the chances went up further. A clean candidate had a 9 per cent chance of winning while a ‘criminal politician’ had a 22 per cent chance of
winning.

Why do people perceive criminals to be a better bet? Milan Vaishnav further writes that the ‘criminal politician’ projects an image of being a do-gooder, a Robinhood kind of character who takes care of his caste or community, or the poor and vulnerable in his constituency. Secondly, where the Rule of Law is weak, the criminals fill in the place that “the police have vacated”. They provide protection and security, for a price, of course. Thirdly, they intercede on behalf of the poor to get basic services from the State, like a BPL card, a regular supply of rations, or an electricity or water connection, etc. Fourthly, they also intercede with the Police and the Courts to sort out the dispute of their weaker constituents who feel harassed by State agencies. Finally, a survey found that a politician who is viewed as corrupt has less chance of getting re-elected, while a ‘criminal politician’ has no such disadvantage. He will continue in politics till his cases catch up with him and he is permanently put behind bars without further recourse to appeal.

Now, let us see the role of money power in elections. There are 475 crorepatis out of 539 MPs (88 per cent), whose details were examined by ADR. 265 out of 301 (88 per cent) were from the BJP, 43 out of 51 (84 per cent) from the Congress, 22 out of 24 (91 per cent) from DMK, 22 out of 23 (95 per cent) from TMC, and all the
22 members of the YSR Congress
were crorepatis.

All is not Lost

Despite this gloomy picture, there are some outliers that defy the general trend. For instance, the massive victory of a rag-tag coalition -- the Janata Party -- in 1977, which overthrew Indira Gandhi soon after the Emergency was lifted; the landslide victory of Rajiv Gandhi in 1984, after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, when he secured an unprecedented 414 seats; and the victory of V P Singh in 1989.

The 1977 and 1989 elections stand out as a protest vote or an angry vote, the first one against the Emergency and the second against the perceived corruption of Rajiv Gandhi in the Bofors scandal. However, in 1984, the massive victory of Rajiv Gandhi was clearly a ‘sympathy’ vote in the wake of the brutal murder of his mother. These three elections have one thing in common, the voters defied money and muscle power in choosing their representatives.

Next is the phenomenon of AAP in Delhi. The AAP emerged on a strong anti-corruption agenda and a massive protest against the UPA-II government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The movement was deftly converted into an organisation and a political party that swept to power in Delhi for two consecutive terms, both times with landslide victories against its well-entrenched rivals, the BJP and Congress. AAP had clearly defied the money and muscle power paradigm thus far but we will have to wait and see whether it emerges unscathed from the ‘Liquor-gate’ scandal that led to the arrest of Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia. Though the jury is still out on the matter, AAP has lost some of its sheen.

Despite all this, why do we vote? We vote, or rather we all should, because ‘We, the People’ have given ourselves a ‘Democratic Republic’. We must vote to prevent it from sliding from corruption into fascism and dictatorship.

(The writer is a former Cabinet Secretariat official)