D.P. Yadav and other hot potatoes

Maja Daruwala & Aditi Datta

So Mr D. P. Yadav was in but now is out. For the rejoicing public, who must wonder how the likes of Jaitleys and Shouries and Suresh Prabhus can bear to think of sharing the same benches as Mr D.P. Yadav's kind, his ouster is a small victory for public opinion. Mr D.P. Yadav, a history sheeter from 1979 has been mired in controversy from the time he joined politics as a legislator in Uttar Pradesh and whose son is himself presently under indictment for murder of Nitish Katara, has usually had an easy passage from party to party. Though he may not get a ticket this time, he is confident that he will remain in politics.

With the 14th Lok Sabha elections looming, there will be close to five thousand hopefuls be in the fray. 543 winners will rule India for 5 years. Parties are busy with their calculations, inducting likely relatives, building cynical coalitions and plain horse-trading. As always, results will depend a great deal on those old equations of caste and class, muscle and money power. Whatever parties may promise about clean politics they continue to give tickets to the worst sorts be it Prabhunath Singh of the Samata Party or Shahabuddin of RJD, or Ramji Lal Suman of the Samajwadi Party. But this time, especially after the high visibility rejection of Mr Yadav they may pause because there is a small new facet, which may change outcomes significantly.

Electioneering this time however, seeks to be different and for the first time since a Supreme Court's 2003 decision that candidates contesting would have to reveal on affidavit their criminal past if any. Existing criminal records may not disqualify candidates from running for election but it can cause embarrassment and may even cost parties a seat or two. The decision to drop Mr Yadav like a potato came after top brass of the BJP feared losing middle class votes who constitute the crucial fleeting votes that could have proved detrimental for the party.

Sadly statistics of the recent state assembly elections held in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan reveal 15-30% of the successful candidates have criminal cases pending against them. The Association of Democratic Reforms which monitored the 2002 elections in Gujarat found that one in every six candidates fielded by the major political parties had a criminal past.

It is true that their own local compulsions and Hobson's choice often leaves voters with little option but to elect tainted candidates. Perhaps this old calculation of 'winnability' at all costs is what prompted Mr Mahajan and Mr Venkaiah Naidu to induct the unlovely Mr D.P Yadav into the party with a difference. All this says something for the growing power of public opinion. It displaced Mr Yadav but may not yet be strong enough to displace every rogue in politics.

But for once parties who fear little else are sensing they cannot for long continue to scorn the intelligence of those who vote them in. In state after state civil society groups such as Association for Democratic Reform in Gujarat, Loksatta in Andhra Pradesh, Mazdoor Kissan Shakti Sangathan in Rajasthan, the Chattisgarh and the Delhi Election Watch, have taken to election watching. They have written to parties seeking assurances that candidates nominated for seats will be clean of corruption and crime. They have worked hard with state and central election commissions to remove bogus voters and register excluded ones and have wrested affidavits from reluctant grass-roots bureaucrats who would not part with them without a fight. They have taken collated statistics and shared them with the media and shown up individual and party hypocrisy. More than all this they have catalysed ordinary people into realizing that it is their fundamental right to know who they are voting for. Though this may not yet overset the old equations at least now the citizen has the opportunity to know more about his candidate than just his name, face, caste or party affiliation. Knowing how educated, wealthy or clean he is will help the voter make choices on grounds other than sectarian loyalties and fear of reprisal.

In the best of democracies politicians, bureaucrats, the judiciary and any one who holds public office seeks to keep excellent reputations because they fear public wrath at bad behaviour. Whatever the real truth, at least the fig leaf of honesty and good reputation is maintained. Where it is not, there is a price to pay. No minister with a sullied reputation can hope to seek re-election. But in our own democracy politicians still believe they need barely heed public opinion. Through scams galore from Bofors, Fodder, Coffin, Telgi, to such national stigmas as the Delhi riots, Ayodhya, and Gujarat, politicians have been confident that they can brazen out bold faced lies and bad reputations in front of a largely rural, poor and illiterate population. Till now there has been little to challenge this belief and criminalisation of politics has been the norm rather than an exception. The disclosure provisions highlighted in the glare of elections will now keep shining before the public those uncomfortable truths that, till date, have been so easy to push into the dark.

We like to bill ourselves as the world's largest democracy. But to become the world's greatest requires that voters not only have periodic moments to vote in this or that new government but have the possibility of making informed and judicious choices about the kind of persons who should govern them. Mr Yadav's ouster provides that possibility.