Ticket to criminals: Rahul is a poster boy, words doesn’t matter to congress

The criminalization of politics now has become an old thing even though our country is 64 years young. It is almost like saying that if you do not have some dabanggs in your party, you are not going to win it. There are very few politicians of high stature who earn regard of the public, most of the regard for others is forced.

On May 16 this year, Congress vice-president and scion Rahul Gandhi told the nation that his party will not give tickets to those who have criminal background. He in fact devised a sort of application form which was five page long and was expected to help in distinguishing criminal candidates from good ones.

Also, Rahul himself went ahead further from his party’s line and termed the ordinance devised for saving the criminal politicians a “nonsense” and called for “tearing it off”. Although the ordinance, which was lying on the President’s desk for approval, was withdrawn by the government, the whole act was dubbed as a show just for projecting Rahul Gandhi as a clean-image leader who is different from all of the Congress leadership kept at one side.

The later theory is proving to be truer day by day.

It was considered that retaining power in Rajasthan will be difficult for Congress if such politicians are not given ticket. It was because these politicians garnered more support and had won their last elections with landslide victory. In Delhi too, it was hard for Congress to find many politicians who had no or less criminal records behind them.

When Rahul had crashed that ill-fated press conference of Ajay Maken to stage up his act, he had said that he was against making “small compromises” in order to retain power. But it seems that his words had no impact on the Congress party.

His mother and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, who is also credited with the taking up the ordinance to the government for consideration and further taking constitutional action on it, went on approving her party granting tickets to criminals in the states bound for assembly elections.

In Rajasthan and Delhi, Sonia and Sheila has had their way of getting candidates who can fetch them results even when they had criminal records. Sonia Gandhi led central election committee handed out tickets to six candidates with serious criminal charges against them in Delhi. She also handed out tickets to the kin of convicted leaders who also had criminal charges against them.

In Rajasthan too, tickets were given to 16 politicians with criminal records.

It should be noted that Rahul has also said that tickets will not be given to those who have lost two elections in a row. But in Rajasthan, tickets were given to such candidates.

The whole situation has made us thinking that Rahul is just a poster boy for the party whose image is being built with great efforts by letting him address relay of rallies in every state. But his words don’t matter to the seasoned politicians who understand the political equations better. But in the end, it is the public which is suffering due to heavy criminalization of politics.