Since its inception, ADR (along with its partners) has had the following achievements:
• ADR won two milestone judgments on disclosure of candidate’s criminal and financial records from the Supreme Court in May 2002 and March 2003 respectively. Since then, 1200 NGOs from all over the country are supporting ADR and ADR in partnership with its partners has organized Citizen Election Watch for all major elections and disclosed candidate’s background information to the media and the public.
• After the Supreme Court’s order, Members of Parliament (MPs) lined up to clear their outstanding dues to the Government for rent, electricity, phone bills and so on to avoid embarrassing disclosures while filing nomination papers.
• The Election Commission has completed a massive exercise based on the Gujarat Election Watch report to verify information filed by candidates in the nomination papers and affidavits, and has started proceedings against candidates with false declarations. They are now currently doing that for the subsequent elections as well.
• A Bill on Electoral Expenses passed in September 2003. The EC has taken it one-step forward and asked candidates to file a statement of expenses in every three days during the campaign. The EC has also made this information (in addition to the affidavits filed by candidates disclosing financial, criminal and educational background) available to citizens on request to Returning Officers, District Election Officers and the CEOs.
• Civil Society non‐partisan Election Watches are springing up in different states. In the Lok Sabha 2004 Elections, 19 States and 5 Union Territories carried out Election Watches. In the Lok Sabha 2009 elections, Election Watches were held in all states and union territories in the country.
• Bihar Election Watch in October‐November 2005 resulted in intense pressure on the Chief Minister Designate due to the extensive media coverage of candidate background. As a result, for the first time, Bihar has a Council of Ministers without any known criminal record.
• A national level political leader contacted ADR during the UP Election Watch in 2007 and wanted the list of candidates for his party with criminal details. Similarly, this also happened in the Karnataka Assembly Elections 2008.
• The Election Commission inaugurated Civil Society led National Conferences on Electoral Reforms in Ahmadabad, Bangalore, Patna, Lucknow and Mumbai. These Conferences were action oriented and resulted in successful Election Watch campaigns. The Election Commission has backed this work and the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) has attended each year’s Annual National Conference on Electoral and Political Reforms.
• The EC issued several very significant orders in the last one or two years relating to candidate disclosure, enforcing those affidavits are complete, taking action against false affidavits based on complaints, and disclosing electoral expenses.
• In April 2008, ADR obtained a landmark ruling from the Central Information Commission (CIC) saying that Income Tax Returns of Political Parties would now be available in the public domain along with the assessment orders.
• In the Karnataka Assembly Elections, 2008, there was a reduction in the number of candidates with serious offenses put by parties. There were 93 such cases against candidates in the 2008 elections, down from 217 in the 2004 assembly elections.
• Overall, the percentage of candidates with pending criminal cases came down from 20% to 14% in the assembly elections held in the country in 2008 for the states of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, NCT of Delhi and Mizoram.
• Mr. L.K. Advani, Leader of the BJP gave a press statement that the BJP would not filed candidates with criminal records (October 2008). Mr. Rahul Gandhi, General Secretary of the Indian National Congress (INC), made similar announcement.
• A large number of candidates with serious pending cases that contested Lok Sabha 2009 elections like Pappu Yadav, Atiq Ahmed, Mukhtar Ansari, Akhilesh Singh, etc. lost.
• The number of total serious IPC sections against MPs decrease from 296 in Lok Sabha 2004 to 274 in Lok Sabha 2009.
• On Jan 25, 2010 both the Congress Chief Ms Sonia Gandhi and leader of opposition in Lok Sabha Ms Sushma Swaraj of BJP made public statements calling for a consensus on barring candidates with criminal backgrounds from contesting elections.
• On Feb 3, 2010 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asks his Cabinet colleagues to disclose details of their assets and liabilities and refrain from dealing with the government on immovable property.
