By Prabhakar Kulkarni
This is the vital question. Because the need to curb nationwide corruption is keenly felt by people who have voted parliament members with the expectation that newly elected MP’s would be so clean that they would have moral right to check corruption in various government departments at various levels in India. They are the law makers and in a way regulators, who cannot prevent corruption unless they are clean. How can they be free from any stigma and what are the conditions on the basis of which they can be fit for clean chit needs analysis and sincere consideration.
The basic question is why do people elect their representatives? They expect that their representatives should carry out development schemes in various areas uniformly without any discrimination between the rich and the poor and mostly in favor of those who are deprived and living life below poverty line. This is not merely for the poor but also for removing the social discontent which is one of the main triggering factors inciting unrest, agitations, and incidents challenging law and order.
The MP’s are therefore expected to respond to their voters’ expectations. While some MP’s are included in the government as ministers, most in the ruling parties or opposition parties or independents are not spectators of what government does or does not. They are expected to be the watchdogs to verify whether the announced schemes are actually implemented without any delay or denial with expectation of bribe or other indirect benefits. They should not hush up the lacuna either at political or bureaucratic level at the cost of public interest. This is not their thankless job or without any monetary remuneration. Each MP gets Rs. 47 lakhs per year including monthly remuneration, residential accommodation, office expenses, air and rail travel, furniture and other routine requirements. This amount amounts to that of a high level CEO in any giant corporate body. These present emoluments may further be increased if necessary.
If so much is given as monetary returns and facilities besides a special status, why should MP’s get themselves be entangled in other monetary activities like forming his or her own industry or enterprise with help of the relevant associates or sharing in other establishments or companies or sugar mills or co-operative banks ? If they are already having participation in any of such establishments they should leave them the moment they are elected as MP. This is because they cannot remain clean if they are interested directly or indirectly in other offices of profit.
A considerable number of MPs seem to be having other positions in sugar mills, banks or industrial establishments or they have started their own industries in both the rural and urban areas. Some have tried to create a sort of permanent image-building strategy by naming institutions, either educational or co-operative banking, by their own names. They cannot remain clean if such institutions are found to be erring sooner or later as alleged to have happened in the present minister in the Modi government, Nitin Gadkari’s case of Purti Industries. After media exposure Gadkari clarified that there was nothing wrong in forming an industrial establishment by an MP or MLA and all his activities in regard to that industry are without any tinge of corruption. He also reported to have stressed that there is no law preventing any elected representative to start industry or any other enterprise.
He may be legally right as there is no such law but what about the moral responsibility? If he is to be considered as legally safe and morally right why he had to step down from the position of the BJP’s president, presumably as per the RSS’s dictate? AAP’s Kejariwal who alleged him of corruption is facing trial of defamation and the concerned Court would ultimately decide the matter with legal perspective. But the RSS’s interpretation from moral point of view stands and if what is morally wrong should be legally so, let there be some such legislation in the new parliament so that MP’s will not be having vested interest in any other activities and should dedicate themselves to their duty as an MP who responds to the voters’ expectations. Instead of starting one’s own enterprise MPs should encourage young educated unemployed to start their own units under various schemes or encourage industries in their areas so that the unemployed would be duly given opportunity to earn their livelihood. There are so many government schemes already launched by previous government or those which would now be planned by the new government for which MPs encouragement or in some cases even intervention is needed to break off bureaucratic barriers and implicit corruption. In a large number of such cases MPs relatives may be included if their cases are genuine. But in the cases of relatives there should not be any undue favor or violation of rules and law as happened in the much-discussed Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra’s case.
The fact that MPs elected second or third time have their assets increased more than hundred percent indicates that the achievement is not fair or morally commendable though its legal interpretation may be without flaw if verified. The tainted ministers or MPs who are facing criminal cases need to be cleansed by Court’s verdict although in some cases the criminal cases are political in nature mostly for breaking law and order while staging demonstrations on vital issues and triggered by public unrest ventilated under MP’s leadership.
While the new Modi government is expected to monitor MPs’ assigned work culture and their nature of involvement in various activities, there are media watchdogs and RTI activists who would watch what MPs are doing and whether they are directly or indirectly involved in any objectionable activities. So the MPs themselves should decide their aim and claim for achievement as people’s representative and they should prove that they are fit for clean chit.
If MPs create a sort of ‘role model’ of clean polity and politicians, MLAs in states and the bureaucracy at the center and the states level would have to follow suit and a new process would start to wipe off the much-discussed and widely exposed nationwide corruption. This is or should be one of the prior innovative steps of the Modi government which aims and plans to develop India on principle of ‘Development of all with co-operation of all’ (‘Sub Ke Sath Subka Vikas’)
About the Author: Writer is a senior journalist in Western Maharashtra, India.