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In Uttar Pradesh, Crime Pays but Politics Pay Tore

Men with criminal records appear to have penetrated all major political parties. And there are all kinds of criminals

by Special Correspondent
LUCKNOW. India — Law breakers have emerged as lawmakers and Ministers in India's most populous state. Uttar Pradesh.
Observers note that when India became free in 1947 criminal elements, who backed the freedom movement against the British Raj, swung into positions of political Importance. They realised that crime pays, but politics pay more.
Today, they arc power brokers engaged in a most lucrative trade. It is reckoned that each parliamentary set costs around Rs 1 million to win. and the price may go up to Rs 10 million, depending on where you are and the kind of opponents you face.
What is remarkable is that each criminal who has a police record of murders, kidnaping, extortions, blackmail and.,robbery, has a tremendous influence in almost every street 'corner. The educated may
shun him. But the lower classes such as workers, the petty businessmen and shopowners regard him with awe.
As a political analyst says. As the power of money grows, crime becomes an integral part of Indian politics."
A newspaper survey in Uttar Pradesh shows that 30 per cent of lawmakers face serious criminal charges. Culling across party lines and ideological beliefs, these men are fast emerging as a distinct group.
A typical comment on criminal politicians from a police diary In the state's Dcoria district goes : 'The incidence of cattle-lifting has declined as the outlaw Is living in lucknow as a Minister." This was In 1977. but now the police believe that the situation has got worse.
A senior police official notes that it was in the 1980s that men With criminal reebrds .wmnpzd the legislature in Uttar Pradesh. The number of
scats occupied by professional criminals, was jumping up In each successive Assembly. It was 7 per cent in the 1984 Assembly. It jumped lo 20 per cent in the 1989 legislature and an alarming 30 per cent in ' the present one.
Men with criminal records appear to have penetrated all major polilical parlies. And there arc all kinds of criminals. They have been accused of kidnapping, cattle-lifting, housebreaking and contract grabbing. Then there arc killers and murderers.
The left-wing Samajwadi Janata Party has the highest concentration of men with criminal records. Bui sheer number the right-wing Hindu Bharatlva Janata Party (BJP)
happens lo be at the lop. As many 58 Members of the legislative Assembly (MIAs) belong to the BJP figure in the police fil^a
There was consternation among the legislators of almost all partk-s when the SJP leader Mu lay an Singh Yadav released a list of 23 BJP leaders, including Minister. MPs and MLAs. against whom criminal cases were pending In different courts. Not be- outdone, BJP State- President Kalraj Mishra released a list to counter it.
Mr Yadav was piqued by the arrest of his associates like former Minister DP Yadav and the- Issue of warrants against
his brothers and nephews. The order* were part. of Chief Minister Kalyan Singh's drtve lo ""decriminalise politics."
legislators, regardless of party affiliations, are unanimous that this type of mudslinging would only degrade the prestige of the legislature Members vociferously argued that merely because a person was facing trial, he should not be branded a criminal.
Understandably, those accused deny the accusations. Others claim cases had been registered against them-for their participation In public demonstrations. "If we are criminals, so were Gandhi and Nehru," a legislator remarked.
No doubt, a large part of the 120 odd M!.As whose names figure in the police files may not be criminals in the real sense. But the number of those involved tn serious offcnc/;*
•Uirtling.
A* a senior politicinn tell* Depthnews. "It Is ali part of the money power game. Il Is happening everywhere — In Thailand, Japan. the Philippine* and in some part* of Malaysia. Once criminals -gather enough money, they develop political ambitions and there la nothing lo stop them."
Take the gangway in Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh. The man who sought lo eliminate his political rivals, now Congress legislator, has two dozen criminal cases registered against him.
The police regarded him as an obscure police informer in the early the Congress government. But now he has grown Into a powerful overlord of East Uttar Pradesh and Narth Bihar by the adept use of his political muscle money