Political parties failed to make public details explaining why candidates with criminal cases were selected for the five state assembly elections held earlier this year, with the required disclosures missing for 191 of the 1,405 candidates analysed by the ADR.
NEW DELHI — Political parties failed to make public details explaining why candidates with criminal cases were selected for the five state assembly elections held earlier this year, with the required disclosures missing for 191 of the 1,405 candidates analysed by the ADR.
The analysis pointed out that in several cases where explanation for the selection, notwithstanding the criminal antecedents, was publicised, parties often chose to use repetitive -- and sometimes identical -- reasons and words to make their case.
The elections to the assemblies of Assam, Keralam, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, besides the Union Territory of Puducherry, saw 8,848 candidates contest, according to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) analysis of disclosures made by 51 political parties.
The election watchdog analysed 3,539 candidates picked by these parties and found that 1,405 of them had declared criminal cases in their election affidavits. Of these, parties had published the required Format C-7 disclosures for 1,214 candidates, while no such disclosure was available for 191 (14 per cent) candidates.
Tamil Nadu had the largest number of candidates for whom the disclosures were unavailable -- 72, followed by West Bengal with 55, Keralam with 27, Puducherry with 12 and Assam with 10.
The C-7 disclosure is meant to tell voters not just that a candidate has a criminal case or cases registered against them but also why the party chose to field that person and why it could not select someone without criminal antecedents, the report said.
The Supreme Court had directed political parties in 2020 to publish the reasons for selecting candidates with criminal backgrounds within 72 hours of their selection. The reasons are required to be based on qualifications, achievements and merit, and not merely on the candidate's "winnability".
The Election Commission subsequently directed parties to publish the information on their websites, social media accounts and in newspapers.
In Tamil Nadu, where 473 of the 1,162 candidates analysed by ADR had declared criminal cases, disclosures were unavailable for 72 candidates. In West Bengal, 559 of the 1,516 candidates analysed had declared criminal cases, with the required information missing for 55.
Keralam had 268 candidates with declared criminal cases among the 431 analysed, with disclosures unavailable for 27. In Assam, 66 of the 318 candidates analysed had declared criminal cases and 10 did not have the required C-7 disclosure available.
In Puducherry, out of 112 contesting candidates analysed, 39 (35 per cent) candidates had declared criminal cases against them, while reasons were furnished for 12 (31 per cent) candidates.
ADR also found that the reasons furnished by parties for selecting candidates with criminal cases were often similar or repetitive, rather than being specific to the candidates.
The disclosures generally cited factors such as a candidate's public reputation, social work, experience, popularity, qualifications and suitability for the seat. In several cases, however, the same wording was used for multiple candidates.
In Tamil Nadu, ADR found instances where parties including the BJP, AIADMK, DMK and Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam used the same word-for-word reasons in their disclosures for candidates with criminal cases.
The report also found instances of identical wording being used to explain why candidates without criminal antecedents were not selected.
In Assam, the AIUDF used the same reason for all its candidates in explaining why other candidates without criminal antecedents could not be selected, while the BJP used identical wording for a large majority of its candidates in that section. The Gana Suraksha Party used the same wording in both sections for all its candidates analysed.
The report noted that its findings were based on information available on the websites and social media accounts of political parties before and during the elections. It also cautioned that parties may have published some disclosures elsewhere and these may not have appeared in ADR's records.