NEW DELHI: The list of charges against politician Kameshwar Baitha is long and startling: 16 counts of murder, 25 of attempted murder, six of assault with a dangerous weapon, three of extortion... and so on.
In many democratic countries, such severe criminal allegations would be catastrophic to a politician’s chances of winning a seat in the nation’s parliament.
But Baitha says the 109 charges, wracked up during his time as a Maoist insurgent in his home state of eastern Jharkhand, will not dent his chances at the ballot box as he seeks re-election in the mammoth elections under way in India. “The kind of work I’ve done, and particularly my focus on the weakest social groups in my constituency, is what makes me popular,” Baitha said, dismissing the charges as false. “Everyone knows that I am the man to beat.”
Fighting corruption and cleaning up politics are major issues at this election, particularly for middle-class and urban voters. The five-week voting process ends on May 12 with results due four days later.
Baitha, who first won his seat in 2009, said voters in the impoverished and mainly tribal forest belt of northeastern Jharkhand see him as a Robin Hood-type figure.
“You are sitting in distant Delhi — come to the region and you’ll know what the people have to say about it, what they think of these cases,” Baitha said, becoming angry on the phone. Almost a fifth of candidates standing for the 543-seat parliament face criminal charges, according to an analysis by the Association for Democratic Reform, a Delhi-based think-tank.
And they are not only in remote and poor areas like Jharkhand, but at the centre of power in India. Five of the seven candidates contesting for the election frontrunner BJP in Delhi face charges, albeit relatively minor ones.
A key aide of BJP leader Narendra Modi, who is tipped to become prime minister on a platform of clean governance and strong leadership, is being investigated for alleged murder and extortion. Traditionally, voters have not been troubled by criminal charges in a country where millions still vote strictly along caste and regional lines.
They also often believe false allegations are levelled by political opponents, with police and the judiciary — who have a reputation for corruption — obliging by laying charges. “There is a lot of truth to this. Some of the charges are politically motivated and trumped up,” said Satish Misra, an analyst with the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation. “But there are also a lot of serious criminals in politics,” said Misra, who has analysed elections in India for three decades.
Baitha, a candidate for a regional party who has told media he was only an ideological not a militant leader of a banned insurgent group, seems unphased by the shifting mood. Voters would continue to dismiss the charges as false and irrelevant, he said. “Poverty and development are the key issues for me and my people.” AFP
