Maheswar Mohanty: pursued by a warrant

The non-bailable warrant issued last month by a judicial magistrate in Bhubaneswar against Maheswar Mohanty would probably not have bothered the portly legislator from Puri much. But on May 21, Mohanty was quite discomfited to discover that a non-bailable warrant can be an obstacle to holding a constitutional post like that of speaker. Though Mohanty was elected speaker of the Orissa assembly by an overwhelming margin, the opposition, led by Lalatendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra, a Congress member of the legislative assembly, walked out of the assembly protesting against his criminal background. Had it not been for a stay by the Orissa high court, Mohanty would probably have been the first speaker in the country to have an arrest warrant pending against him.

The high court rescued Mohanty by staying the execution of the warrant issued in a 1984 case registered against him for demonstrating in front of the Raj Bhavan. In another case dating back to 1995, the Puri police had filed charges against Mohanty under several sections of the Indian Penal Code relating to rioting, attempt to murder, voluntarily causing hurt to deter a public servant from doing his duty and voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons. However, the subdivisional judicial magistrate of Puri is yet to frame charges against Mohanty.

Ironically, Mohapatra too has been chargesheeted by a Bhubaneswar court for rioting activities in 1992, when he was a leader of the Congress’s student wing, the National Students Union of India. Charges against him were framed in two separate cases (498/92 and 551/92), under sections 147, 148, 294, 224, 336 and 506 of the IPC.

Thus the Orissa assembly, which begins its session today, will have a number of members with criminal cases pending against them in the courts. The state revenue minister and Bharatiya Janata Party legislator, Dhamnagar Manmohan Samal, has cases against him that range from issuing death threats to criminal intimidation.

But it is the Biju Janata Dal MLA from Pipili, Pradeep Maharathy, who leads the pack. With 57 cases against him, Maharathy could have figured in the rogues’ gallery of a police station. The cases against him pertain to offences like attempt to murder, molestation and dacoity. But thanks to the slow-moving judiciary, he is yet to be convicted. As in previous elections, Maharathy was elected by a huge margin in 2004 too.

Jana Adhikar Abhiyan, a local NGO, analysed the election affidavits of candidates as part of its Orissa Election Watch programme and found that as many as 135 of the 802 candidates in the assembly polls had criminal cases pending against them, ranging from theft to extortion. Many of these candidates won.

The situation is perhaps not as bad as in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, where gangsters fight elections from behind the bars. But Orissa could be a Bihar in the making. Says Rita Ray, a sociologist with the Utkal University: “We are getting what we deserve. People have become inured to politicians with criminal backgrounds. There is no reaction against people with a dubious background. We need a revolution to stop the criminalization of politics in Orissa.”

Of the 135 candidates with criminal background who were in the fray, six were women and 24 had degrees in law. The Congress led the pack with 30 candidates, followed by the BJD’s 22, while the BJP had 19 candidates who had had brushes with the law. The Jana Adhikar Abhiyan feels that the trend is growing. “Though the politicians don’t think much of the cases against them, they need to be exposed,” says Ranjan Mohanty, who works with the NGO.

While charges like the use of obscenities, rioting and unlawful assembly are common, some of them relate to crimes against women. Jagannath Tudu, a Jharkhand Mukti Morcha candidate in the Udala assembly constituency in Mayurbhanj, was accused of selling a minor girl to prostitution, while Mallik Kumaruddin, the Bahujan Samaj Party candidate from Kakatpur constituency, has been accused of molesting a woman. None of these candidates has been convicted though cases against them have been pending for decades.

One would have thought that political parties in Orissa would think twice before giving tickets to candidates with criminal charges against them; in reality, the parties seem to seek them out. The BJD chief and chief minister, Naveen Patnaik, chose candidates on the basis of their winnability — not merit or experience or even public image — in the elections. Considering his aversion to sleaze and corruption, Patnaik would have done well to choose uncontroversial legislators like Sanatan Bisi and Chaitanya Majhi for the post of speaker. But Pattnaik seems to have flattered to deceive.

Ditto for the Congress and the BJP. Narasingha Mishra, a former law minister and the Congress MLA from Loisingha in Bolangir, has been charged with rioting with deadly weapons, criminal intimidation, theft, receiving stolen property, and mischief by fire and explosives in order to destroy a house. The Congress legislator from Pallahara constituency, the 53-year-old Nrusingha Sahu, has been charged with molesting a woman. The 43-year-old cooperation minister and a senior women’s leader of the BJP, Surama Padhi, faces charges of torturing for dowry. Even the suave Kanak Vardhan Singhdeo, the urban development minister, has two cases against him, including one of criminal intimidation. But the politicians say the charges are politically motivated. According to Mayadhar Nayak, a former trade union leader and now a Congressman, “Some of the cases may be true, but in most, the political angle is always there.”

In some places, however, politicians with a criminal background are being rejected. In Baripada, the state BJP spokesperson and party candidate, Raj Kishore Das, was humbled. In 1998, Das, as chairman of the Rairangpur Notified Area Council, was alleged to have molested a woman. A case under several sections of the IPC is still pending before the court of the Rairangpur sub-divisional judicial magistrate. In the election, his past records came back to haunt him as the tribal women voted him out.

Among the Central legislators, Jual Oram, the BJP member of parliament from Sundargarh, has been charged in two cases under sections relating to rioting, obscene songs and acts, criminal intimidation, and misconduct in public in a drunken state. If convicted, Oram can be imprisoned for two years or more.

The decay in public morality in Orissa is disturbing, but it is not a sudden phenomenon. There are no easy ways to stop people with grave criminal charges against them from entering legislatures. Sociologists like Ray blame the people of the state for the situation. “It’s because of our forgiving attitude that such people get elected,” she says. But as the recently-concluded elections have shown, people really don’t bother whether those who represent them have a criminal background.