ISAS Working Papers

There are two facts about Indian politics that merit urgent attention. First, the number of Members of Parliament (MPs) in the Lok Sabha or Lower House (which is directly elected by the people in a first-past-the-post system) with criminal records is striking. In the current Lok Sabha – which came into existence in 2009 – the number of MPs with criminal charges against them is 162, which work out to nearly 30 per cent of MPs having either criminal cases registered against them or pending in court. The more crucial figure is that 76 MPs, or 14 per cent of the total number of MPs, were charged with criminal cases that could attract imprisonment of five years or more. In the earlier (2004) Lok Sabha, the picture was not much better. There were 128 MPs with pending criminal cases against them, out of whom 58 had serious criminal cases registered against them.2 This has led to the perception, as the Supreme Court puts it, that the ‘law breakers have become the law makers’.