Patna: Today, the honorable Supreme Court slapped charges against 8 leading political parties who did not share criminal records of their Bihar election candidates. Amongst them are also BJP and Cong who were fined for the same cause. It has come to the notice that 6 of them have been fined Rs 1 lakh each and the other two have been slapped with 5 lakh each.
The 6 parties who have been fined 1 lakh include BJP, CPI, Congress, Janta Dal-United, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), and Lok Jan Shakti Party. And the other two parties who were slapped with 5 lakh Rs fine include the (Marxist) Communist Party of India and the National Congress Party (NCP). Apart from the fines they have also been directed to further disclose the criminal record information of the election candidates on both the newspaper and the social media handles.
This is considered a big step by the highest justice court towards decriminalizing elections across the country. The judges of the justice bench said the political parties have “refused to wake up from deep slumber” which is why such a decision had to be made. Hopefully, Bihar will get a non-criminal record holder election candidate after this!