Arrest voters for accepting bribe: EC

Electoral politics in India has a new dimension – arrest of voters for accepting bribe. The Election Commission has arrested 20 persons in the ongoing elections in Karnataka for accepting money to vote in favour of particular candidates – a bailable offence. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Apr 22, 2013, 11:01:37 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Electoral politics in India has a new dimension – arrest of voters for accepting bribe.

The Election Commission has arrested 20 persons in the ongoing elections in Karnataka for accepting money to vote in favour of particular candidates – a bailable offence. If the government accepts the commission's plea, offering or accepting money for vote would land people in jail (non-bailable offence).

It is unusual because, normally, a case of bribery is registered against candidates or their nominees for giving money to voters to use franchise in their favour. The voters, who receive money, are not touched as most of them were from economically deprived section.

The practice resulted in the accused going scot-free in the absence of evidence of someone having received the bribe for voting. "There had been no conviction for years for bribing voters," a senior election commission official said. The commission found that proving such a case in court of law was almost impossible.

The commission went for a tactical change. It decided to take action against voters also so that they could have a better case in the court of law and it could also deter voters from accepting money.

The decision was the fallout of the commission's finding that both the major political parties in Tamil Nadu - DMK and AIADMK - had given money and gifts to voters in the last assembly elections but was not able to crack the whip as evidence was not available.

The commission at that time had not taken any penal action against the voters thinking it would send a wrong message that it was targeting the poor and the deprived.

Now, the commission has taken a view to initiate action for deterrence and not harassment. "We are not going whole hog on getting cases registered against voters. It is being done just to send a message that accepting money for voter is a crime under the Indian Penal Code," the commission official said, who accepted that most of voters accepting money were poor. The decision is being implemented in Karnataka polls.

Another reason for the commission failing to stop the menace of bribing voters is the weak provisions in the law, which makes offering or taking bribe a bailable offence.

The commission wants the offence to be non-bailable and has made a request to home ministry to amend the Indian Penal Code. "As many as 18 state governments have agreed to the proposal," the official said and added that the ball was now in the court of the ministry.

The commission believes that if the amendment is enacted before next general elections it can become a huge deterrent in checking the electoral malpractice of money for votes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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