39 MLAs with serious criminal charges, did Karnataka's voters get a good deal?

Governments, so far from being always the cause or means of order, are often the destruction of it - Thomas Paine, Rights of Man. This is in continuation to the 2-part series that was published here on Firstpost before the Karnataka polls, wherein the contestants were mapped against metrics such as a sset growth , criminal charges , educational qualifications and PAN declaration. Now that the grotesque tandav of democracy is over, I will share some data pertaining to the same metrics for the elected MLAs. [caption id=“attachment_773029” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Really a people’s victory? AFP[/caption] Electoral systems in India have been manipulated and destroyed to such an extent that good governance remains a pipe dream for the populace. A look at the mix of legislators that the polls in Karnataka have thrown up further reinforces this point. Source: ADR Press Release dated 10th May, 2013. The data pertains to 218 out of the 223 elected MLAs affidavits filed by 5 candidates were illegible. Interestingly, only 5 of the 223 are women MLAs. This post will lean heavily on tables and data, keeping the commentary, interpretation and narrative to a bare minimum. So feel free to interpret and draw your own conclusions – if you need the source report, please drop me a line and I will be happy to mail it across.   At this juncture, let us refer back to a table I that I had shared last week which focused on the 179 MLAs who re-contested these elections:  Now I turn my attention to the criminal antecedents of the worthies that we have elected to serve the citizens of Karnataka. For a quick look at the quality of candidates that was poured into the electoral funnel, click here . The table below focuses on the elected MLAs and the criminal cases they have declared on their affidavits. [caption id=“attachment_772729” align=“alignleft” width=“620”]  Table: Crime Chart.[/caption] The 39 MLAs who have declared serious criminal cases against their names are distributed across all political parties - INC: 17, BJP: 9, JD(S): 6 and Others: 7. Between them, they have a sordidly impressive tally of 147 IPC counts. To make matters worse, there are 5 MLAs who have declared murder cases against their names, and another 11 with cases under Prevention of Corruption Act. The party-wise break-up is as under: [caption id=“attachment_772735” align=“alignleft” width=“620”]  Table: Party-wise break up of criminal charges.[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_772745” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Table: Educational qualification of elected MLAs.[/caption] So these, ladies and gentlemen, are the staggeringly unimpressive credentials of the elected representatives who, even as they are wrapped in their gigantic anxieties pertaining to wealth-accumulation and criminal cases, will lord over the citizens of Karnataka – legislating, reviewing policies, allocating resources, clearing proposals and files related to infrastructure/ education/ healthcare/ environment, overseeing law & order, fixing social inequities and doing whatever else that is detailed out on their KRA sheet. Moral authority to govern be damned! Congress may have won the elections – but the citizens, I am afraid, have lost once again. Solutions to the problems that are leading to outcomes as spelt out in the data mentioned above, exist; I have written on the same extensively in the past. Unfortunately, political will to undertake the task of restoring the glory of the so-called pillars of parliamentary democracy, appears to have died – or at least, it is no longer alive. Afterthought: In the same book that I quoted from at the beginning of this post, Paine also shared the words of Marquis de la Fayette: For a Nation to be free, it is sufficient that she wills it! India may have gained Independence in 1947, but are its citizens really free yet? Free in all 8 tones & all 5 semi-tones of the word’s full octave, to quote Stephen Fry completely out of context! Mail: shining.path.notperu@gmail.com Twittering tittle-tattle: @ShiningPath1