Profiling our Lok Sabha Candidates for Phase 1 General Elections

The first phase of polling is underway as i pen this blog. A quick update on the candidates and their profiles as researched and published by http://www.adrindia.org/home/index.asp, www.nationalelectionwatch.org:

1. Total no. of Candidates with Criminal Records = 222 (i.e. 16% of 1425 candidates)

2. Most of the major political parties have fielded candidates with criminal records, with top four parties being INC (24), BJP(23), BSP(17) and SP(10)

3. Most states have candidates with criminal background contesting elections- Bihar is at the top with 51 candidates (or 26%)

4. There are 306 charges of heinous nature on the candidates which includes, murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, extortion, etc.

5. 193 crorepatis are contesting the phase 1 Lok Sabha elections. Congress has the maximum number of crorepatis (45), followed by BJP (30) and BSP (22).Percentage of contesting crorepatis has increased from 9% in 2004 to 14% in 2009

6. 68% candidates have not furnished their PAN card details.

7. Number of women candidates is just 122(7%) as compared to 1593 of men(93%).

8. Amongst the major parties, the average asset per candidate for INC is Rs.4.3 Crore, BJP is 2 crores and NCP is 1.06 crores.

9. Only 60% of the contesting candidates have a Graduate + level of education.

I have a very prejudiced view of the treatment to be metted out to these candidates: Shoes instead of Votes

General Elections: The great Indian tamasha

The leaders of our democracy continually disgrace the office and the trust that they carry by the citizens of the country. Criminalization of Politics is rampant and with the majority seats being the major electoral agendas, parties both national and regional choose candidates who are from dubious backgrounds to lead constituencies, state and the country. With the new citizen activism taking wings, 2009 looks to be beginning of an anti criminalization movement in the country. One must give kudos to the social and political thinkers, awareness generation groups and the press for supporting this new movement. A new ad campaign doing rounds of the satellite networks is the "i will vote against.." which exhorts citizens to vote against all that is ill in this country for the future generations.

Impervious to this mood however (strangely) are political parties, who seem to be eternally haggling about seat sharing and opportunistic alliances. BJP led NDA has run into problems with JD(U) and Shiv Sena. Apart from that a long time partner BJD (Naveen Pattnaik led Orissa party) has already ditched BJP to join the third front. Congress and UPA have its own list of woes with SP (AN uneasy alliance that has broken down), NCP, TMC and RJD all on seat sharing basis. The gainer of all this is the third front or the left with its ragmatag loose coalition of marginal and state majors. So far, a national agenda is yet to be firmly highlighted by Congress and BJP who seem to be more busy in terms of getting its partners right.

In an earlier post i had already mentioned about how the initial Lok Sabha candidates list by BJP, INC and SP are tainted with individuals from dubios and criminal cases riding behind them. http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/03/criminalization-of-politics-revisiting.html. Of the 543 representatives of the country in May 2004, 125 had charges against them, many with serious offences.Of the 125, 96 had serious charges with potential sentences of two years or more. A quarter of them had done more than 3 terms in the Lok Sabha.

It is worth a note how BJP and Congress dominate the party list, fielding close to 50% of the total tainted list. The first party lists for the general election this year have started to flow out and out of the 18 out of 71 candidates on whom the background checks were have emerged tainted. The percentages of candidates with Criminal past is definitely not abating. If anything the trend is getting more and more established.

Criminalization of Politics: Revisiting the same paradigm in 2009 Elections

With election commission declaring a 5 stage electoral process for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the political tempo has set a pace with seat sharing bargains between the principal parties (Congress/BJP) with other regional parties. ToI's first round poll results have indicated no definiote majority and in effect, it would be these political parties which would prove to be the kind makers in the face of a hung parliament.

What is disturbing to the citizens of the state is the number of candidates with criminal pasts being fielded by political parties all over. These are same political parties which roil and shout and critic each others criminals antecedents. In two different reports by ADR (Association of Democratic Reforms), a Ahmedabad NGO has exposed the criminal background of lok sabha candidates fielded by Congress, BJP and SP. This is only basis the 50000 criminal records since 2003 (and not earlier!)

Basis the limited database that the NGO was working around, it can be clearly seen that INC has fielded 4 candidates in UP with criminal background, while BJP has fielded 8 in the LOk Sabha Fray who have criminal backgrounds. BSP has fielded 6 criminals in the Lok Sabha candidates. Many of these candidates have serious charges against them.

WIth lack of a political will, does clean politics stand a chance in this nation: the largest democracy in the world.