ADR India

Press Notes

Mumbai – Jan 28, 2009 - National Election Watch (NEW), a nationwide campaign comprising of more than 1200 NGO and other citizen led organizations working on electoral reforms, improving democracy and governance in India has stepped up the pressure on political parties to demand accountability from them. It is planning several initiatives with the purpose of bring transparency and accountability in the political system at the 5th National Conference on Electoral and Political Reforms to be held at Nehru Center, Mumbai on Jan 31st and Feb 1st, 2009.

Details about the 5th National Conference on Electoral and Political Reforms:
The delegates to the conference will include civil society organizations, eminent citizens, media, senior bureaucrats and Police officials, leaders from the corporate sector and the political parties. The three Election Commissioners including Mr Gopalaswami, Mr Quraishi, and Mr Navin Chawla, are also planning to attend.

Talking about the conference, Mr Ajit Ranade, a founder member of ADR said, “The election watch teams from all the 28 states are participating in the conference. This will be the first time that we will use existing details on candidates that we have collected from affidavits filed by them over last several years. We will do a systematic analysis of their asset, criminal cases declarations and other information and disseminate the information to voters.”

Delegates include Mr Nikhil Dey and Ms Aruna Roy from Rajasthan, Arvind Kejriwal from Delhi, Ramchandra Guha from Karnataka, LC Jain, Ex-member Planning commission, Mr Yugandhar, ex-member, Planning commission, and several others. Also coming are Mr Manohar Parrikar, former CM Goa, Mr Suresh Prabhu, MP, Dr Jairaj Phatak, Municipal Commissioner Mumbai, Chief Electoral Officers(CEOs) of various states.

Resolutions to be passed at the conference:
National Election Watch (NEW) and its affiliated state election watch groups have been discussing various strategies to implement the following specific changes in our political system.

Talking about the resolutions, Mr Gerson Dacunha, the trustee of AGNI said, “The groups will finalize the specific details on these points and make resolutions which have emerged from consultations around the country. Most of these have been endorsed by the Election Commission. The political parties should listen to the peoples demand and make appropriate changes for their implementation”.

The specific demands of NEW partners are:

1. Barring candidates against whom criminal charges have been framed in a court. Also disqualifying of candidates who indulge in electoral malpractices, and striking off names of people with non bailable warrants from voter rolls.
2. Implementation of “None of the Above” – which would include providing a real option for people to vote “Note of the Above” if people do not like any of the contesting candidates. If the “None of the Above” option gets maximum votes, it would mean that all the contesting candidates have been rejected by the voters. This would result in a re-election but the contesting candidates from the previous elections would not be allowed to contest.
3. Comprehensive bill to regulate political parties to make them more transparent and accountable - All leading democracies have such a Bill, we have none. In particular, the Income statements and sources of income should be mandatorily disclosed for all parties. The issues of inner party democracy in political parties, and greater transparency and regulation of political party funding is required.

Candidates with criminal background from recent elections:
Since 2002, the major impacts of these campaigns have been on criminalization of politics, and transparency in candidate and political party assets.

Speaking about the criminalization of politics, Mr Anil Bairwal, National Coordinator of ADR and National Election watch said, “As a result of the election watch campaigns across the country, the percentage of contesting candidates with criminal records has come down from over 20% to about 12% based on the data from recent elections. Leaders of both the BJP and the Indian National Congress have made public statements that they would not field candidates with criminal records even if they were likely to win in the coming Lok Sabha elections. This however has not been the case. Although the percentage of contesting candidates has come down, the % of elected representative has marginally gone up. A lot more needs to be done. People want able and honest people to lead them and not those against whom criminal charges have been framed in a court.”

Here are consolidated results on the number of MLAs from the recent elections.

The consolidated data for all previous elections is also attached at the back.

Launch of National Election Watch website:
ADR and the National Election Watch(NEW) will be launching a new interactive website accessible as www.nationalelectionwatch.com. ADR and the National Election Watch has got data of over 25000 candidates who have contested over last 7 years, based on the information filed by them in their affidavits. All this data will henceforth be available on this website in an easy searchable form. To begin with, there will data on all the current Lok Sabha MPs and from two states that went to polls recently, Delhi and Mizoram. The information on all states on this website will be available in a phase manner within next few months.

Contacts:
Anil Bairwal,                                                   Ajit Ranade
National Coordinator                                        Founder Member
National Election Watch                                    Association for Democratic Reforms
Association for Democratic Reforms                    +91 9702215312
National Election Watch                                    This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
+91 9999310100
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About NEW
The National Election Watch (NEW) is a nationwide campaign comprising of more than 1200 NGO and other citizen led organizations working on electoral reforms, improving democracy and governance in India. The National Election Watch is active in almost all states of India and has done election watch for all states and Lok Sabha elections since ADR, along with couple other organizations, won the PIL in Supreme Court in 2002 to making disclosure of educational, financial and criminal background of electoral candidates mandatory.
 
About ADR
Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) is a Non-Political, Non-Partisan and a Non-Governmental Organization whose PIL filed in Dec 1999 culminated in a Supreme Court order on Mar 13, 2003 requiring disclosure of criminal, financial and educational background of all contesting candidates. Since then ADR has done Election Watches in almost all State Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. It continues to works towards strengthening democracy and governance in India by focusing on fair and transparent electoral and political processes. It is currently conducting election watch is all states going for assembly polls.
You can learn more about ADR at: http://www.adrindia.org