The Constitution mandates that boundaries of Assembly and Parliamentary constituencies be adjusted every 10 years (Delimitation), taking into account the changes in population, density and other demographic variations. This exercise should be based on the decennial census.

The whole of last week, the entire media and the state was agog with the Krishna Yadav episode. The details of the scam were covered widely elsewhere. Instead I would like to focus on why are criminal elements finding a place in the political arena and why are political parties harbouring them?

This week’s recall election in California shows us how dysfunctional the democratic process can become even in a great democracy like the United States.  In spite of its spectacular advances in communications and technology and the presence of a vibrant media, Californians fell prey to the distortions of the democratic process. As a result an actor known only for his brawn and nothing else is elected as the chief executive of the largest state in the US, which also happens to be the 5th largest economy in the world.

Gandhi Bhavan was set afire by Congress’ own workers; KCR was gheraoed by his own party members from Khammam; the BJP office in Hyderabad was vandalized by their own cadre from Malakpet constituency and the TDP workers in Adilabad took out processions against their own party president.   All these workers were angry at the way their parties formed alliances, shared seats and distributed tickets for the impending state and parliament elections.