Indian politicians 'corrupt, inefficient'

NEW DELHI (AFP) - A majority of Indians believe their politicians are inefficient, corrupt and in politics only to make money, according to a survey published Tuesday, a day after elections were announced.
The poll by the Times of India found 83 percent of respondents felt politicians were corrupt while 59 per cent believed the main motive of most politicians in the world’s biggest democracy was financial gain.
Another 72pc believed most Indian politicians are inefficient, said the survey which interviewed an unspecified number of people in 10 major cities nationwide.
“The bad news for the politicians is their own ratings are uniformly poor,” said the Times report, which appeared a day after authorities announced general elections would be held in stages over a month from April 16.
The survey “shows how all-pervasive the revulsion with the political class is and how much the leaders are regarded as a venal lot,” the newspaper said.
Some 44 per cent of respondents predicted politicians would remain corrupt.
But the survey found just over half of voters optimistic they would have no choice but to improve if faced with electoral defeat or being disciplined by regulatory bodies like the Election Commission because of corruption. Some “voters are convinced that they can force the politicians to mend their ways by voting out non-performing candidates in the coming elections,” the Times report said. Sixty per cent of those surveyed blamed politicians for the problems confronting the country of more than 1.1b people. More than 710m people are eligible to vote in the upcoming polls.
Many politicians elected to parliament routinely face criminal charges ranging from rape and kidnap to murder.
About a quarter of the 543 members elected to India’s lower house in 2004 faced criminal charges, including murder, kidnap and rape. India bans only convicted criminals from seeking public office.