ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

Sangma bemoans continuing nexus between criminals and politicians

Former Lok Sabha speaker and senior Congress leader Purno A Sangma today expressed concern over the growing nexus between politicians and criminals, and regretted that the much-publicised resolution of Parliament to combat the menace had been kept in the cold storage.

''I am shocked that the marathon debate in Parliament on the occasion of 50 years of independence to find out where the country went wrong during all these years, has been completely forgotten by people at the helm of affairs,'' he said after releasing a book entitled Second Freedom Struggle by retired Colonel Dharmvir Kataria.

India was still not a hopeless case, and if people were involved in a big way in the nation-building process, maladies of criminalisation of politics and growing poverty could be checked effectively, Sangma said.

He said the media has to play a major role for the second freedom struggle and ''they will have to go to remote areas to highlight problems of people in those inaccessible areas, to understand their aspirations and anguish''.

Journalist Kuldip Nayar, MP, said the debate initiated in Parliament had infused a new ray of hope, but unfortunately, nothing could be delivered at the grass-root level and the situation remained as dismal as it was.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report