Laloo gets a clean chit, Shibu Soren in deep shit

You couldn't find a more illustrative example of how OBCs can game the system way better than their Dalit/Adivasi counterparts. Of course, OBCs are way more cunning, so much so that they have fully internalized the Dalit oppression script and making a full use of it.

As expected, Laloo, who belongs to a powerful OBC clan, was acquitted of graft charges.

A special CBI court acquitted Union Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav and his former Bihar chief minister wife Rabri Devi in disproportionate assets case on Monday. The CBI will now appeal against the verdict in the High Court. The disproportionate assets case is an offshoot of the fodder scam (~ Rs. 950 crores) in which complaints were lodged against Bihar's most famous couple.

On the other hand, Shibu Soren, who is technically an ST, got the short end of the stick.

Former Union coal minister Shibu Soren was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Delhi court on Tuesday for his involvement in the 1994 abduction and murder of his private secretary Shashi Nath Jha. On November 28, Soren became the first cabinet minister to be convicted of murder.

I am waiting to see a huge hue and cry from the socialist lobby. No word on whether we should use the same lens to judge these two incidents.

Meanwhile, if any progress has been made at all in decriminalizing Indian politics, it came from a totally non-partisan group not interested in self-promotion (unlike the Narmada bachao, meri Kitaab kharido gang of Arundhati Roy, Dilip D'Souza etc). That's why you may not have heard of them.

There are signs of improvement. Details of the charges against MPs were not public knowledge until a few years ago, when a campaign led by a group of academics resulted in their disclosure. At the time, all the parties resisted the move. Proof, says Jagdish Chokker, one of the campaigners, that "India's politicians can be unanimous and efficient on an issue that affects them all." But the idea stuck, and now the two big parties ask potential candidates to disclose any charges against them before they are selected.

If you are interested, check out this page on the Public Affairs Center website. Some stats:

• Of the 540-odd members of the lower house, around 100 have been charged with crimes. Of those 100, one-third face serious charges such as rape or kidnapping.
• Over fifty per cent of the MPs with the most serious criminal cases happen to be from four states, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh. Among the political parties in these states, the regional parties account for a majority of the MPs with serious criminal cases.
• Money is truly a barrier to entry in the political arena. The average assets of an MP is Rs. 1.64 crores ($366,000), and a majority of MPs are multimillionaires. There are variations among political parties, with the Indian National Congress leading the pack in terms of asset power. The two communist parties are at the other end of the spectrum.

Let me also quote a stat I found interesting:

Average Total Assets per member:
Congress - Rs. 310.76 lakhs.
BJP - Rs. 96.91 lakhs.

BJP tails by a wide margin most other parties. BJP MPs also lag far behind in "dues" (i.e. money taken out of public funds) to various Government institutes.

Yeah, yeah, I quoted selectively. So, socialists, the link is there. Go knock yourselves out.