The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Polls on caste lines decried

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 02, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Polls on caste lines decried

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, JAN. 1. The former Governor of Bihar, Rama Jois, has decried the influence of caste in elections and in appointments to nominated posts.

Delivering a lecture on `Problems inflicting democracy', organised by Samachara Bharati here on Saturday, Mr. Jois said caste had come to play a major role in selection of candidates and in elections.

He opposed parties fielding of candidates on caste lines and felt that appointments to nominated posts on the same criterion should be done away with. "The influence of caste in politics was growing by each passing day," he lamented.

Mr. Jois expressed anguish that parties were divided on secular and anti-secular lines. Stating that citizens of the country were secular to the core, he found it strange that there was division branding some parties as secular and others as anti-secular. "Secularism was the bedrock of democracy and who ever is blaming some parties to be anti-secular are doing it with ulterior motive," he observed.

The former Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court noted that corruption had come to play a major role in politics.

He said right from the first general election in 1952, money had changed hands and the situation had turned so bad that parties were vying with each to woo voters with money. "No social worker can dream of contesting election without the use of money and muscle power," he remarked.

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