More politicians mean more crimes.

Following Ms Mayawati's claim that crime was low when she was chief minister of UP, Krishnamurthy Subramanian, Associate Professor of Finance at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, has compared rates of violent crimes between the so-called Bimaru states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, between 1999 and 2014. Violent crimes include, murders, attempted murders, kidnappings and abductions, dacoity and robbery, riots and arson, rapes, dowry deaths etc. Comparing with more developed states, like Gujarat and Tamil Nadu would be unfair, so he has compared like for like. He shows that violent crime fell dramatically in UP by 16% a year from 1999 to 2003, when the BJP was in power, and has been increasing at 7% per year since then. By contrast, in Bihar, whose crime graph matches that of UP , violent crime grew by 3% per year. UP politicians are able to claim they reduced crime because they ordered a reduction in the rate of crime, so police stopped registering violent crimes for fear of vengeance by politicians. Since Akhilesh Yadav became Chief Minister of UP the police were filled with Yadavs, as reward to his vote bank, so the police started colluding with criminals from among Yadavs. Which meant most crime was hushed up. Despite so much subterfuge the rate of recorded violent crime has surpassed the highest level, which means the real rate is beyond comprehension. In the most heinous crimes of murder, kidnappings and abductions and crimes against women UP saw the most rapid increase compared to the other 3 states. Local politicians claim that a lot of complaints are politically motivated, but that would apply to all other states. Even though she is a woman herself, Mamata Banerjee dismissed claims of rape by saying they were "cooked up conspiracy" by her opponents. Also, a lot of criminals are connected to politicians so people are afraid of registering cases against them, for fear of violent reprisal. We can conclude that rates of violent crimes have really shot up and that both SP and BSP are responsible. Why is all this important? Because UP will have to hold elections to its assembly by March of next year and power in India means pelf. Humongous amounts. It is hard to know precisely how much wealth politicians accumulate after elections but a from figures available they are eye watering. There are proposals of dividing UP into 4 states but that will only multiply crime by a factor of 4. The hill state of Uttarakhand was carved out of UP but is probably even more corrupt. Smaller states mean more assemblies which means more politicians and more crimes. Is there a solution? Perhaps, only if BJP wins outright. We shall see if the people of UP want to improve their state.