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Election Watch

2002

Year started in

868

Reports Released

179253

Candidates Analysed

4

Lok Sabha Elections

Since 2008

Rajya Sabha Elections

102

State Assembly Elections

All 6 States

Legislative Council Elections

20

Local Body Elections

REPORTS

  • Analysis of Criminal, Financial, Education, Gender and other background details of contesting candidates, MPs, MLAs, MLCs and ministers.
  • Analysis of Assets Comparison of Re-Contesting MPs and MLAs.
  • Analysis of Election Expenditure Statements of MPs and MLAs.
  • Analysis of Vote Share and Margin of Victory of MPs and MLAs.
  • Analysis of Performance of MLAs.
  • Analysis of the Register of Members' Interest of Rajya Sabha MPs.
  • Analysis of NOTA Votes.
  • Analysis of Criminal, Financial, Education, Gender and other background details of contesting candidates and Winners of local body elections.
  • Analysis of MPs/MLAs with Declared Cases Related to Crimes against Women.
  • Analysis of MPs/MLAs with Declared Cases Related to Hate Speech.

Political Party Watch

2008

Year started in (Data available from 2001-02)

148

Reports Released

Election Expenditure Reports (2004-19)

Assembly Elections

96

Elections for which election expenditure reports were created

620

Political parties whose election expenditure details were analysed

Lok Sabha Elections

4

Elections for which election expenditure reports were created

149

Political parties whose election expenditure details were analysed

Audit Reports

605

Parties whose audit reports have been analysed by ADR till date.

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Contributions Reports

432

Parties whose contributions reports have been analysed by ADR till date.

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Electoral Trusts Reports

84

Electoral trusts whose contributions details were analysed since FY 2013-14.

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Unrecognised Parties Reports

294

Registered unrecognised parties whose various reports have been analysed.

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Electoral Bonds Reports

Analysis of Electoral Bonds sold and redeemed during the thirteen phases (March 2018 – October 2020)

Analysis of Eligibility of Registered Unrecognised Political Parties to Receive Funding Through Electoral Bonds

Legal Advocacy

Landmark Judgements for ADR

Where ADR was the party (petitioner/intervenor)

A Public Interest Litigation was filed by ADR in December 1999 in Delhi High Court (2000 High Court judgment) that culminated into landmark Supreme Court Judgements (2002 &2003) whereby now a candidate to any National or State Assembly elections is now to give information regarding their assets, liabilities, and criminal proceedings against them, if any. Specifically, the following information is required under Form 26 read with Rule 4A of the Conduct of Election Rules
  1. In case the candidate is accused of any offence punishable with two years or more, and charges have been framed by the Court, information such as the FIR No., Case No. and the date of framing of charges;
  2. Details of conviction in any case not included in Section 8 of the RPA, where the sentence was for one year or more;
  3. PAN Number and status of filing of Income Tax Return for the candidate, spouse and dependents;
  4. Details of movable and immovable assets the candidate, spouse and all dependents;
  5. Details of liabilities of the candidate to public financial institutions or to the government; and
  6. Details of profession or occupation and of educational qualifications.
On 28th March, 2014 Delhi High Court found BJP and INC guilty of taking foreign funding and thereby violating the provisions of FCRA, 1976. The judgement drew attention to the donations made to INC and BJP for the period up to the year 2009. The High Court directed MHA and ECI to relook and reappraise the receipts of the political parties and identify foreign contributions received by foreign sources as per law and take action as contemplated by law within six months of the date of the receipt of the judgment.
This matter related to complaints against former Maharashtra CM Ashok Chavan for publication of news items, advertisements and filing inaccurate election expenditure statements during 2009 Maharashtra Assembly elections. The judgment dealt with an important question of law that whether the Election Commission, under Section 10A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, can conduct an enquiry to determine the falsity of the return of election expenses by an elected candidate. The Supreme Court on 5th May, 2014 held that the Election Commission has got every jurisdiction to hold the enquiry under Section 10A of the RPA and therefore has the power to disqualify a candidate in relation to filing of wrong election expenditure statements.
On 27th Sept. 2013, Supreme Court gave a favourable ruling and ordered inclusion of NOTA buttons on the EVMs. The NOTA button was inserted in the EVM machines first time during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. And directed the Election Commission to provide necessary provision in the ballot papers/EVMs and another button called “None of the Above” (NOTA) may be provided in EVMs so that the voters, who come to the polling booth and decide not to vote for any of the candidates in the fray, are able to exercise their right not to vote while maintaining their right of secrecy.
On 10th July, 2013 Supreme Court held that if any sitting member of Parliament or a State Legislature is convicted of any of the offences mentioned in sub-sections (1), (2) and (3) of Section 8 of the Representation of People Act and by virtue of such conviction and/or sentence suffers the disqualifications mentioned in sub-sections (1), (2) and (3) of Section 8 of the Act after the pronouncement of this judgment, his membership of Parliament or the State Legislature, as the case may be, will not be saved by subsection (4) of Section 8 of the Act which we have by this judgment declared as ultra vires the Constitution notwithstanding that he files the appeal or revision against the conviction and /or sentence. Clause 8(4) had provided special privilege to MPs/MLAs to hold the office even after conviction if an appeal has been filed in a higher court within the span of 3 months.
This petition was filed by a Lucknow based organisation named Lok Prahari. ADR had intervened in the matter. In addition, ADR had also supplied all the necessary data related to the assets of MPs and MLAs in the Court, which the court had considered while giving the judgment. On 16th February, 2017, following relief was granted by the court:
  • Sources of income of spouse and dependents to be included in form 26 (affidavits).
  • Permanent mechanism for scrutiny of affidavits.
  • Non-disclosure of assets and sources of income would amount to ‘undue influence’ – a corrupt practice under Section 123(2) of the RP Act of 1951.
  • Information regarding the contracts, if any with the appropriate government either by the candidate or his/her spouse and dependents.
ADR had filed an intervention application in the Supreme Court in an SLP in the matter of Satish Ukey vs. Devendra Gangadharrao Fadnavis SLP (Crl.) 19-20/2018. This matter dealt with concealment of information by Maharashtra C.M. Devendra Fadnavis in his affidavit during the Maharashtra State Assembly elections, 2014. In his affidavit, he had not mentioned the information regarding two criminal cases prescribing punishment of more than two years and where cognizance was taken by the court. ADR had intervened in the matter since the matter is pertaining to furnishing of information in the affidavits by candidates at the time of election and ADR was the original party in the 2000, 2002 and 2003 affidavit judgments.

On 1st October, 2019, the Supreme Court held that in order to maintain purity of elections and healthy democracy, voters are required to be educated and well informed about the contesting candidates and therefore held that details of all pending cases in which cognizance has been taken by the Court, irrespective of the quantum of punishment or framing of charges will have to be disclosed by the candidate. The court also ordered for a fresh trail from trial Court.

Other landmark judgments on electoral and political reforms where ADR's data was quoted

Government to enact a law to prohibit candidates with criminal background contesting the elections to the Parliament as well as State legislatures.
De-criminalization of Politics: Fast track courts for trial against MPs and MLAs within an years; political parties and candidates with criminal antecedents to publish the details of their criminal cases at least on three different dates from the date following the last date of withdrawal of candidatures and upto two days before the date of poll.
Setting up of Special Courts to deal with 1581 cases involving MPs and MLAs as declared at the time of filing of the nomination papers for the 2014 elections. Eleven states have set up 12 special courts. There are two in Delhi and one each in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar West Bengal, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.
Cancellation of election of law makers on suppression of information about pending criminal cases which are within a special knowledge of candidate.
Duty of PM & CMs not to appoint ministers against whom charges have been framed by a criminal court.
Rejection of nomination papers in case of blank affidavits.
Suppression of information regarding assets of spouse in the affidavit amounts to an offence of non-disclosure of vital information in the affidavits.

Orders by Central Information Commission

A second appeal was filed by ADR to bring I.T Returns of the MPs under public domain. On 10th August, 2016 the Central Information Commission directed the I.T Dept. to examine each point of the RTI request and issue notices to all third parties in all eight cases as per the provisions of Section 11 of the RTI Act. The Commission also directed the CPIOs to duly consider the larger public interest and secure responses of the parties after giving sufficient opportunity to the appellants and decide on information with speaking orders on each point, within three months from the date of receipt of this order.
On June 3, 2013, Central Information Commission (CIC) declared six national political parties, namely the INC, BJP, CPI(M), CPI, NCP and BSP to be "public authorities" under Section 2(h) of the RTI Act, on a complaint filed by ADR and Subhash Agrawal.
On 16th July, 2011, the Central Information Commission in an appeal filed by ADR had ordered CBI to provide information relating to number of complaints received by CBI in the last 10 years against MPs/MLAs and MLCs.
The Central Information Commission, on 3rd June, 2011 brought Pecuniary information of the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament) members in the public domain under RTI Act in an appeal filed by ADR.
The Central Informal Commission, on 29th April, 2008 made the Income Tax Returns (ITR) of political parties available for the public under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, in an appeal filed by ADR.

Information Technology

Milestones achieved by the IT team

  • SMS campaign was initiated during the Lok Sabha 2009 elections where on sending pincode of the area information regarding the contesting candidates of a constituency was provided to the users. The number of users who utilized these services reached about a lakh during the lok sabha elections. The campaign was run during state assembly elections too and has now been made part of the election watch process.
  • Websites nationalelectionwatch.org and myneta.info were updated with live information of the contesting candidates in each phase of Lok Sabha polls. In fact, the site myneta.info had more than a million hits starting from zero during the recent elections and quickly reached into top 10,000 sites with respect to hits during the recent elections.
  • ADR is also present on Facebook and Twitter
  • Election watch tool has been enhanced to generate reports at the level of the candidates/winners (from Assembly, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha elections) and constituencies.
  • The software used to map pincodes of areas can now also map constituencies. This will help in giving users information about the candidates based on their pin code as well as constituency through SMSs.
  • The adrindia.org website was completely re-vamped to increase user accessibility.
  • The Election Watch Software (EWS), which is the backbone of all our research work, has gone through a process of change and upgradation. EWS is the online tool used to feed information on antecedents of candidates. The changes were made to suit the new format of affidavits released by the ECI in 2011 and also for the analysis of election expenses. The online tool was also expanded to include information on the performance of MLAs and Assemblies.
  • myneta.info underwent changes to display information on MP/MLA background details in a more user friendly way. Changes are further being made to include information on political parties like their Income Tax returns, donation details etc.
  • An android application for the website has also been developed, available on play store
  • Another android application called the Election Watch Reporter to help people report cases of electoral malpractices. The application al- Android application for myneta.info website lows the person to take a picture of any electoral malpractice and upload them with the GPS location. They app can be downloaded at:
  • Maintenance of and updating the Election Watch Software: the online tool was revamped to include more reports for the Election Watch analysis during the Assembly elections of 2013 and during the Lok Sabha elections of 2014.
  • The two android applications: MyNeta Disseminator and Election Watch Reporter were used during the election periods.
  • The ADR India website was revamped for the Lok Sabha elections to highlight disseminating material (including celebrity videos, the ADR anthem etc.) and the election and survey reports.
  • Political Party Watch Software: An online tool has been created for digitizing donation details of political parties in MyNeta.
  • ADR Blog: ADR Speaks was launched as a platform for all the articles written by ADR Trustees, State Coordinators and employees on various subjects related to our work.
  • Payment Gateway: Introduced to facilitate direct online payments through gateway at donations.
  • Management of the ADR India website has been taken over completely by our inhouse IT team. It is also being continuously revamped to make it more reader friendly.
  • Embedded infographic: Embedded infographics have been made in html for Lok Sabha book which can be embedded in the website as well.
  • Collaboration with Maharashtra State Election Commission: For Local Body elections held in 2016 and 2017 Maharashtra SEC collaborated with ADR to analyse the candidate data of 192 Municipal Corporations, 20 Nagar Panchayats, 25 Zila Parishads and 283 Panchayat Samitis. While ADR IT team provided its inputs to Maharashtra SEC on how to improve their digitization software processes. Maharashtra SEC provided ADR with comprehensive candidate criminal, financial and other background data free of charge. ADR team analysed these data and released comprehensive reports prior to the local body elections.
  • Map-based infographics: IT Team created map-based infographics for 5 States Assembly elections held in 2017. This allowed voters to quickly and interactively check their candidate’s data on the map of the state by clicking on their constituency.
  • Danamojo Payment Gateaway: The IT team has Integrated Danamojo payment gateway on the adrindia.org donations page in order to facilitate online donations.
  • Dissemination of ADR’s Reports through Whatsapp: A Whatsapp for business account has been created which will enable citizens to directly subscribe to ADR’s Whatsapp account, and updates such as Press Releases and Reports can be messaged directly to subscribers.
  • Availability of Push Notification on ADR website: Online push notifications have been implemented on myneta.info to notify subscribers of release of new data/instances on myneta.info.
  • Exclusive web page for Maharashtra Election Watch: A separate web page has been created exclusively for Maharashtra local body elections.
  • Upgrade of Election Watch software tool: Key developments have been made in Election Watch Software code, including making reports sortable column-wise with a single click, income sources for self and spouse added, provision for adding built up area in commercial buildings and displaying bye-election data on myneta.info.
  • Improved Security of the database: Security changes have been implemented on myneta.info and adrindia.org, with the addition of a Google recaptcha to prevent spam, Cloudflare protection to prevent DDoS attacks, debugging of code to prevent cross-site-scripting attacks, and installation of SSL certificates for website traffic encryption.
  • Danamojo Challenge: ADR participated in DanaMatch Tax Saving Challenge, a challenge by ADR’s donation payment gateway on the adrindia.org in order to facilitate online donations.
  • Multiple Webservers for Load Handling: From FY 2018-19, ADR has started using three web servers for hosting myneta.info website for load balancing. The aim of load balancing is to optimize the use of resources available, maximize throughput, minimize response time, and avoid overload of any single resource. Instead of using a single webserver, load balancing takes advantage of multiple servers by increasing the architecture availability and reliability.
  • Application Program Interfaces (APIs): Since 2018 State Assembly Elections, ADR has started creating APIs for media houses/organizations for disseminating data in secure and reliable manner. These APIs are used for querying candidates' information from a constituency of interest.
  • Upgrade of Election Watch Software (EWS) tool: Improvements were made in the earlier EWS tool, especially in data entry section in order to align it with the new format of Form 26. ADR also graduated from EWS version 3 to Version 5. Following were the changes
  • incorporated in the latest version:
    • A section for declaring the GST dues for self, spouse and dependents was added in liabilities section.
    • Dependents row was added in source of income section.
    • Under section Details of PAN and status of Income Tax return, a separate column for total income shown in the last 5 financial year ITR was added.
    • Section for contracts with appropriate Government and any public company or companies was added after source of income section.
    • Changes were made in the tool of the section for criminal cases. Now, it comprises only two sub-sections: Pending criminal cases and cases of conviction.
  • Following five new reports were added:
    • Contract Details of Candidate
    • Criminal Candidates with Pending Charges
    • Candidates who have filed 5 years Income Details
    • Candidates who have dues to Government departments, Candidate, Spouse and Dependent Sources of Income vs. Assets
    • Candidates who have shown highest Self Income in their Income Tax return
  • Availability of Push Notification on ADR website: With online push notifications implemented on myneta.info, subscribers are notified about the release of new data/instances on MyNeta’s website

Communications

Facebook

68,424

Followers on ADR & National Election Watch

75,037

Followers on MyNeta

LinkedIn

1,252

Followers

Twitter

18.2K

Followers

4.7M

Impressions

YouTube

212.1K

Views

1.0M

Impressions

+2.3K

Subscribers

Awards & Achievements

Awards

Achievements


February 2018 On a petition of Lok Prahari regarding disproportionate asset increase of the MPs & MLAs, Supreme Court made it mandatory for candidates to declare sources of income of spouse & dependents in Form 26 of affidavits. ADR had intervened in the matter & also provided all the necessary data.


September 2016 Maj Gen Anil Verma (Retd), Head of ADR, participated as a speaker in Second Forum of Citizen Observers, two-day event organized by European Commission in Brussels, Belgium, on 15-16 September 2016. It brought together citizen observer groups and civil society organisations from all over the world with representatives of international institutions to discuss current challenges to election observation. Full report.
August 2016 Prof. Trilochan Sastry, Chairman ADR, represented ADR at the 3rd Asian Electoral Stakeholder Forum (AESF III) conference in Bali, Indonesia.


May 2014 In Ashok Chavan paid news case, the Supreme Court had passed a judgment holding that Election Commission of India (ECI) has the power to disqualify a candidate in relation to filing of false election expenditure statement under Section 10A of RPA. ADR had intervened in the case supporting the stand of the ECI.


September 2013 The Supreme Court ruled that the right to register a "none of the above (NOTA)" vote in elections should apply and ordered Election Commission to provide such a button in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM). ADR had intervened in the matter.
July 2013 Supreme Court delivered a Judgment on a petition filed by Lily Thomas and Lok Prahari NGO, (ADR Intervened) setting aside clause 8(4) of the Representation of the People Act. As a result of which sitting MPs and MLAs were barred from holding office on being Convicted in a Court of Law.
June 2013 The Central Information Commission (CIC) in an effort towards making political parties transparent as well as accountable in their functioning, declared the six national parties BJP, INC, BSP, CPI, CPI(M) and NCP as public authorities. All six parties refused to comply with CIC's order. In 2015, a petition was filed by ADR in the Supreme Court to implement CIC's order by bringing them under the preview of Right to Information Act, 2005.


December 2012 ADR/NEW released an analysis of the number of politicians charged with crimes against women. ADR/NEW's recommendations and data was also widely quoted by the Justice Verma Committee in its report.
October 2012 The Election Commission asked the Ministry of Home Affairs to probe violations of the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA) and the Representation of Peoples' Act (RPA) by major political parties which reportedly received foreign contributions.


June 2011 After a two-year-long RTI battle, crucial information on the 'Registers of Members' Interest' was finally mandated by the Central Information Commission (CIC) to be available in the public domain in June 2011.
January 2011 Details of the movable and immovable assets of 30 Bihar ministers, including that of CM Nitish Kumar, were uploaded on the government website in January, 2011.


August 2010 Petition filed by ADR & PUCL in the Supreme Court in 1999. The SC gave a historic judgment in 2002 making it mandatory for all candidates contesting elections to disclose their criminal, financial and educational background prior to polls by filing an affidavit with the Election Commission.
July 2010 Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) in collaboration with National Election Watch (NEW) under the banner of “Mera Vote Mera Desh” launched the first ever nationwide Voter Registration Campaign in colleges and universities in July, 2010.


April 2008 Data on the 2007 UP Assembly Elections was used by Chief Election Commissioner, N Gopalaswami, who emphasized to all political parties not to field candidates with a criminal background. He cited the analysis done by ADR on criminalization of politics.
March 2008 The Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgment on March 13, 2003, stating that the non-disclosure of the assets and liabilities by candidates in their affidavits would result in the rejection of their nomination papers. This is an important step towards greater transparency in elections.