India's last parliament flopped. Crammed with ill-prepared parliamentarians, it passed few laws. A look at the roster of candidates for the current election suggests that too many again are celebrities or time-wasters. A legal campaign by a civil-activist group, the Association for Democratic Reforms (adr), forced aspiring parliamentarians to publish details of their education, wealth and criminal past. Yet if transparency was to serve as disinfectant, it is slow-acting. Of 7,562 would-be mps assessed by adr, 106 declared themselves illiterate; 2,038 said they were crorepotis, that is worth at least 10m rupees ($166,000). Most troubling are those whose wealth grows after their election. This week a court told Jayaram Jayalalitha, Tamil Nadu's chief minister, that her18-year legal case for allegedly amassing "disproportionate assets" will drag on longer. Others face similar cases.
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