Parties in rush to clean image

Come elections, the police and law enforcement agencies in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh are under intense pressure from their political masters to withdraw or dilute criminal cases slapped against influential caste leaders or prospective Lok Sabha candidates.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) central leadership in New Delhi has not hidden its keenness to ensure the release of POTA detainee and independent legislator of UP Raghuraj Pratap Singh, alias Raja Bhaiyya, implicated in several criminal cases.

BJP sources say Raja Bhaiyya's release will influence Rajput votes in favour of the party. It has been suggested that the POTA case against the legislator be diluted with the help of the home and law ministries.

The pressure is acute this time for one reason: the Supreme Court's insistence that all candidates declare their criminal antecedents, if any.

Though all parties ganged up and amended the People's Representation Act to exempt those implicated on "political grounds" from the Supreme Court's decree, the apex court struck down the amendment.

Sources in the Election Commission say it is now mandatory for all candidates to declare in full, details about his or her criminal antecedents.

Obviously, this mandatory provision exposes all parties to the charge of sheltering criminals. This is why the Bihar government is looking again at the files related to Mohammad Shahabuddin, the Lok Sabha member from Siwan, imprisoned on various criminal charges.

Though it is impossible to withdraw charges that are of heinous in nature, the state government is considering moving court to dilute the nature of charges and prove that they are politically motivated. Shahabuddin is close to RJD supremo Laloo Prasad Yadav.

In Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti is making a determined attempt to withdraw all criminal cases against a loyalist and Union Minister of State for Coal Prahlad Patel and some other prospective candidates on the pretext that the charges against them were politically motivated.

Patel told Business Standard that the Chief Minister had been giving a general pardon to all those implicated in false cases for political reasons.

In the recently concluded elections for the state council in UP, some of the legislators with criminal antecedents maintained that all cases slapped against them were politically motivated.

For instance, Chulbul Singh, charged with heinous offences, contested the elections with BJP's support. Considered to be close to a former BJP chief ministers and the top party leadership, Chulbul Singh maintained in his public declaration that he was a victim of a political conspiracy.

The long criminal history of certain close loyalists of UP chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav has been a much debated issue in the run-up to the elections.

But Yadav is learnt to have been exploring the possibility of diluting cases against some of his close confidants. Similarly, the BSP is all set to present a long list of candidates having criminal antecedents.

In the past too, the BSP has not shied away from putting up such candidates and never made any attempt to withdraw the cases during the Mayawati regime.