DNA Edit: Cleaning up elections – Poll panel move to make life more tough for the corrupt

The Election Commission of India’s proposal, asking the candidates to declare five years’ Income Tax Returns (ITR) in their affidavits, if accepted, will give a definitive direction in making India’s electoral politics corruption free. The proposal seeks details of not just the candidate, but her/his spouse, dependents and the Hindu Undivided Family (HUF), and also foreign assets held by them if any. These changes, if accepted, will be as path-breaking as those that debarred candidates who were convicted in serious crimes. For decades, electoral politics was being steered, at least in some parts of India, by the muscle power of the candidates or the parties they represented. 

There were several cases of candidates with criminal background contesting elections from prison and winning them. Mafia don Arun Gawli, who hails from Mumbai and is now behind bars for extortion, was one such. Others to call shots from prison included musclemen from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. There was stiff resistance when the rules were amended to keep criminals out. Similarly, alliances were ruined over support for such rules, or lack of it. But they have worked, and at least brazen criminals who didn’t care two hoots for the law are now out of the law-making bodies. The new changes sought by the EC will be another step in cleansing politics of corruption. 

Even now, though the candidates are required to declare assets, one can see the miraculous growth in their income over the years. And, even though the rest of the country does not grow at even the one-hundredth of the candidate, the latter are still worry-free given their clout. The new changes will place in the public domain the mismatch between the IT returns and the assets declared by the candidates. No longer can a politician claim he/she made profits through farming, even as debt-ridden farmers continue to kill themselves in various parts of the country.