The market for India's criminal politicians

This month, a great deal has been written on “criminals” in the electoral domain, as voters have been going to the polls in five States across India. It is perhaps a sign of the times that one of the most often-quoted statistics on modern Indian politics is that more than a quarter of the sitting Members of Parliament (MPs) face criminal indictment (at the State level, that number hovers around 20 per cent). Yet, despite all the attention paid to the often sordid biographical details of India's political class, there has been a surprising want of analysis regarding why we have this phenomenon.

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