The axiom of political science says that ‘authority tends to corrupt and absolute authority corrupts absolutely.’ This holds true in the present scenario where anyone who comes to power uses it to make more and more money out of their position. Everyone vies for the most coveted seats so as to fill in his/her pocket before they get sacked or in other words, before the opportunity comes to an end. Though the menace of corruption has engulfed the whole nation and the epidemic has spread to all the states and all the parties yet it is interesting to see how every party or every individual levels charges of corruption against the other while completely forgetting his/her own self or party. Right from the north to south and from east to west, cases of corruption continue to flare up and every now and then news reports come up unveiling big scams where mostly the culprits are the big shots and high level politicians.
The situation has become so much worse that corruption has become an integral part of politics and it has become a common idea among the masses that no political party is free from corruption. Nepotism is another necessary result of corruption and we have a long list of cases wherein family members of the politicians earned influential positions during the tenure of corrupt ministers. One does not even need to think before recalling the names of corrupt ministers as, in general, the corruption has become so widespread that any name one takes is in some way or the other connected with corruption.
Suresh Kalmadi, who got arrested for awarding illegal contracts to firms during the 2010 Common Wealth Games, caused a loss of Rs. 95 crore to the exchequer. This was the loss which he inflicted upon the nation because of giving illegal contracts and as per the amount which was released to be used for developing the infrastructure, of course from the taxes paid by the citizens from their hard earned money, apparently only half of that was used and the rest remained unaccounted.
The BJP, which created a furore over the issue of corruption when Anna Hazare began its campaign, has its own leader tainted with the charges of corruption. The social activist who wanted to expose the 70,000 crore irrigation scam in Maharashtra asked Gadkari’s help to take the veil off the scam but alleged that Gadkari outright rejected her proposal and said that he would not help her as he had business interests with Sharad Pawar and it is their mutual understanding and turning blind eyes to each other’s actions that help both reach personal goals and financial ambitions. Besides the irrigation scam, Sharad Pawar was also named by Abdul Karim Telgi in the fake stamp paper scam. He was also charged of giving favours to his family and relatives.
Similar was the case down south, where A Raja, former Union Cabinet Minister for Communications and Information Technology, was the prime accused in the 2G scam which was worth Rs. 176, 000 crore. Karunanidhi is the one who institutionalised corruption as he gave free influential posts to all his relatives which led to high levels of corruption in the whole state. Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh also came in the news regarding the Taj Heritage Corridor Case and everyone is aware of her extravagant birthdays and currency garlands. She spent whopping sums of money on the construction of parks which once again raises questions as to whether building parks was required when the state is baffling with the issue of poverty.
Next to UP is Bihar where Lalu Prasad Yadav was involved in embezzlement of Rs. 950 crore in the famous fodder case. There is another interesting thing to note in most of the cases that the culprits did not get any harsh punishment because of their links with those who call the shots in the country. Though some were sent to jails yet nothing concrete was done so that it would become deterrent for others as well. Rather the insignificant punishments gave the politicians a free reign to do whatever they pleased to do.
Next to Bihar, Madhu Koda in Jharkhand inflicted serious losses to the exchequer by allowing illegal mining in the area. Licensing the illegal mining resulted in the loss of Rs. 4000 crore. It was also alleged that 30 per cent of the money went to the Maoists.
BS Yeddyurappa in Karnataka also got into the illegal mining scam. Jayalalitha, the current Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu has 46 cases of corruption against her. A raid at her residence led to the seizure of 28 kilograms of jewellery, worth Rs 51 crore.
The few examples above corroborate to the fact that indeed is true that most of those who are all powerful in the nation have really turned into the most corrupt. The whole nation, from top to bottom and from left to right is inundated with scams and charges of corruption. The present political state of the country is such that not a single party could claim it to be completely free from any scam and hence the only option that they could and would bank upon in the elections would be the faults of others. The whole democratic system has now turned into the one where the contenders themselves just want to portray them as lesser evil and nothing else. In the mad race for acquiring more and more, the politicians are looting the public wealth and spending it on their own luxuries. With the present situation in sight, it seems rather impossible that the situation would change. The burden again now falls on the people to look out for the less corrupt party as hoping for a completely corruption-free society would, at this point of time, be viewed as a naive and utopian idea. But still let us hope, though many would argue that it would be nothing but a hope against hope.