CORRUPTION

India has seen political corruption for decades. Corruption, today, has became increasingly pronounced in the country. Democratic institutions have became federally owned, dissent is eliminated and a majority of citizens are paying the price.

The political corruption in India is weakening its democracy and has led to the erosion of trust by the general public in the political system. A good amount of money is required in elections which is source of politicalcapitalist nexus.

CANDIDATE SELECTION

Indian political parties have low level of internal party democracy and therefore, in Indian elections, both at the state or national level, party candidates are typically selected by the party elites, more commonly called the party high command.

The party elites use a number of criteria for selecting candidates. These include the ability of the candidates to finance their own election, their educational attainment, and the level of organization the candidates have in their respective constituencies. Quite often the last criterion is associated with candidate criminality.

NEPOTISM.

Since the 1980s, Indian politics has become dynastic, possibly due to the absence of a party organization, independent civil society associations that mobilize support for the party, and centralized financing of elections.

This phenomenon is seen from national level down to district level.

UNHOLY ALLIANCES

The alliances have smaller parties enter and leave the alliance according to political convenience. Many of these parties ally at national level but contest against each other at state level.

The inherent problem with such an alliance is that they are only bound together by the fact that they are not aligned to other alliances, and not through similar ideological stances.

This often means that this alliance is merely an alliance in name and does not really provide a united front which can serve the country diligently

COALITIONS

Many regional parties, are deeply aligned to the ideologies of the region and thus the relationship between the central government and the state government in various states has not always been free of rancor. Disparity between the ideologies of the political parties ruling the centre and the state has led to severely skewed allocation of resources between the states.

This has also led to the rise of political parties with agendas catering to one or a mix of religious, regional, caste, creed and language based groups. Moreover, internal security is also threatened as incidences of political parties instigating and leading violence between two opposing groups of people is a frequent occurrence.

THE LACK OF CREDIBILITY

There is an established criminal–politician nexus. Many elected legislators have criminal cases against them. In July 2008, the Washington Post reported that nearly a fourth of the 540 Indian Parliament members faced criminal charges, "including human trafficking, child prostitution immigration rackets, embezzlement, rape and even murder”.

Nearly half of the newly-elected Lok Sabha members have criminal charges against them, a 26% increase as compared to 2014, according to the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR). Of the 539 winning candidates analysed by the ADR, as many as 233 MPs or 43% have criminal charges.