Who146;s the least corrupt of us all?

In the Uttar Pradesh elections, worse appears to be the enemy of the worst

The Uttar Pradesh voters are literally caught between the devil and deep sea in the forthcoming elections to the state assembly. Should they vote or not vote and, if they were to vote, how would they identify the lesser evil among all the parties in the fray?

The Bharatiya Janata Party8217;s chief ministerial candidate, Kalyan Singh, made an honest confession in this connection while addressing a election campaign meeting at Kanpur recently. He made comparison between the various governments in the state and observed that he, as an Uttar Pradesh chief minister, was the lesser devil as compared to Mayawati and Mulayam. Said Kalyan Singh, 8220;Inquiries relating to assets and the Taj issue are on against Mulayam and Mayawati respectively, while I am not linked to any corruption or scandal.8221;

He seems to be suffering, however, from a bout of amnesia. Has he forgotten the Kusum Rai issue which became the sole reason for his ouster from not only the UP chief minister8217;s office but also from the BJP? Or maybe, as per his standards, this is not as serious an issue as that involving the other two biggies! Kalyan Singh, as chief minister, had nominated his protegee, Rai, as chairperson of the Social Welfare Board and faced strong opposition from all quarters, since there were more deserving candidates for the post. Even the frontline leadership of his own party criticised Kalyan Singh8217;s stance at that point and said that it was influenced by personal bias.

Now the same Kalyan Singh has used the old ruse of projecting his opponents8217; failings in a manner where he emerges relatively better. Nevertheless, his statement made the writing on the wall clearer: UP voters do not have the choice of 8216;good, better, best8217;. It is 8216;bad, worse, worst8217; contesting against each other.

It is interesting to recall how, until some time ago, while discussing deteriorating standards and the increasing corruption and criminalisation of politics, we had laughed and said that a time would come when we would have to identify the least corrupt as our leader.

We had little inkling at that point that a time would actually come when politicians themselves would accept and justify their falling standards!