It is unfortunate that the Supreme Court has left the task of decriminalising politics to Parliament (“Has the SC missed a chance to keep criminals out of polls?” Oct.12). The percentage of parliamentarians with a criminal background went up by more than 10 percentage points in 10 years, from 23% in 2004 to 34% in 2014. The legislature is unlikely to make laws to debar criminals from contesting polls and political parties will not stop giving tickets to such candidates. And the voters have no choice but to choose between tweedledum and tweedledee. In these circumstances, as opined by former Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi, we can only hope that judicial activism comes to our rescue.
Kosaraju Chandramouli,
Hyderabad
