Recently dubbed “urban Naxal” and “anti-tribal” by Union home minister Amit Shah, Chaitar, a tribal himself, fights the election from the Bharuch constituency with Congress support as part of the INDIA bloc. ADR’s list – based on ECI data – shows, he tops the list of 36 candidates who have criminal cases pending against them. Considered a promising candidate, popular among the tribals, Chaitar is pitted against BJP’s Mansukh Vasava, a six-term Lok Sabha MP.

Reported to have been pressured to join BJP, which he is said to have refused, and jailed for a month in a rioting case in December 2023, the Gujarat High Court granted interim relief to Chaitar by suspending the bail condition that restrained him from entering the Narmada district, part of which fall under the Bharuch constituency, till June 12, the next date of hearing in the case. It allowed him to submit his candidature. The sessions court had imposed the bail condition in January this year.

Known to have fought several Supreme Court cases for bringing about electoral reforms – the latest one being on the electoral bonds scheme which brought the elite non-profit into limelight – the ADR list, based on the affidavit Chaitar filed, shows that as many as 12 criminal cases are pending against him, including those related with robbery, sexual harassment, extortion, causing grievous hurt, abetment of offence punishable with death or imprisonment for life, promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony, and so on.

Answering a question on whether ADR attempts to look into political reasons why such criminal cases are being imposed by the powers-that-be on candidates like Chaitar, especially in the light to recent arrests by security agencies of top politicians, including Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, the NGO representative in Gujarat, Pankti Jog, said, “We only analyse the affidavits filed by individual candidates in order to analyse their criminal record. We don’t have resources to analyse why these cases are being used against politicians.”

With some of the top Indian academics on its board, including Prof Trilochan Sastry, who chairs ADR, who was with the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad; Prof Jagdeep S Chhokar, former director, IIM-Ahmedabad; Dr Ajit Ranade, vice chancellor, Gokhale Institute of Politics & Economics, Pune; Dr Kiran B Chhokar, head, Higher Education Programme at the Centre for Environment Education (CEE); Kamini Jaiswal, senior Supreme Court advocate; Jaskirat Singh, founder and CEO, Webrosoft Solutions (P) Ltd; and Dr Vipul Mudgal, director of Common Cause, another top elite NGO, it reportedly has 1,200 NGOs as its members.

Chaitar Vasava, a tribal himself, fights the election from the Bharuch constituency with Congress support as part of the INDIA bloc

Yet, ironically, ADR avoids making a comprehensive analysis of the netas’ antecedents, including their hate speeches, which have lately been in news nationally and internationally, which seek to incite religious discord. It just offers an “open data repository platform” claiming to “empower Indian voters with election-related information” on criminal, financial and educational information of candidates who have contested elections. Hate and involvement in communal rioting as a crime is analysed only if a case a registered against a candidate, not beyond.

Chaitar Vasava No 1 in criminal cases

While it recently won a major legal battle that forced the State Bank of India to release data about how much poll funding was received as electoral bonds and get them published on the Election Commission, it is not known if ADR wants to take the case further to ensure that political parties, especially the ruling BJP, does not use the money they received as electoral bonds following raids or threats of raids by security agencies on industrial houses. Answering a query, Jog, Gujarat ADR in charge, told media, “Ambiguity remains… We haven’t pursued the matter.”

Other legal cases it has fought include making it mandatory for the candidates contesting elections to file self-sworn affidavits on regarding their criminal, financial and educational background; making income tax returns of political parties to be available in public domain; bringing political parties under the Right to Information Act by declaring them as public authorities; barring MPs and MLAs from holding office on being convicted in a court of law; having a separate button on the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) with the option of None of the Above (NOTA); and so on.

The post Urban Naxal to Amit Shah, AAP Bharuch candidate tops ADR Gujarat criminal cases list appeared first on SabrangIndia.

As many as 15 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election winners bagged their constituency seat with less than 1,000 votes, reported the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) on April 7, 2022.

In a report that analysed the vote share for all 403 constituencies in the state elections, ADR found that only eight winners won by a victory margin of more than 40 percent. All of these aforementioned winners were from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Meanwhile, of the 15 candidates won with a margin of less than 1,000 votes, six people were from the Samajwadi Party (SP) while the rest were members of the ruling regime.

Moreover, the ADR reported that 78 out of 205 winners with declared criminal cases won against a runner up with a clean background. Three winners even won by a margin of 30 percent like BJP’s Amit Agarwal who won the Meerut Cantt. constituency with a 48 percent margin of victory. 51 winners with declared criminal cases have won with a vote share of 50 percent and above. However, 38 winners won by a margin of less than 10 percent. Another 29 winners earned a margin between 10-20 percent.

Similarly, the report said that 49 out of 366 crorepati winners won against non-crorepati runners up. As many as 103 (28 percent) crorepati winners won with a vote share of 50 percent and above. Yet, 19 winners got a victory margin of less than 10 percent while another 19 winners got a victory margin between 10-20 percent.

“Among these 49 winners, 7 winners have won with more than 30 percent margin of victory. BJP’s Atul Garg from Ghaziabad constituency won with a 43 percent margin of victory,” said the ADR.

As for gender, 47 of the 403 winners were women, 33 of whom enjoyed a vote share of 41-50 percent.

“BJP’s Anjula Singh Mahaur from Hathras constituency won with the highest vote share, i.e. 59 percent in her constituency and 38 percent margin of victory,” said the report.

As many as seven women won a vote share of more than 50 percent while the remaining seven winners got a vote share between 31-40 percent. In terms of victory margins, five women winners won with more than 20 percent margin of victory, 11 women won by 10 to 20 percent victory margin and the rest got less than 10 percent of victory margins.

Overall, this year’s winners won an average of 47 percent of total votes polled. In comparison, winners of the 2017 elections won an average of 43 percent of total votes polled. As many as 111 (28 percent) winners won by securing 50 percent and above of the total votes polled in their constituency.

There were also 209 re-elected winners this year, all of whom got more than 35 percent of vote share in their respective constituencies. As many as 64 (31 percent) of these winners won with more than 50 percent of vote share. Further, 92 (44 percent) re-elected winners won with a victory margin of less than 10 percent whereas 17 people won with a margin of more than 30 percent.

The entire report may be read here:

Related:

UP Assembly Elections: Margin of victory less than 500 votes in 11 seats!
UP’s tribal belts show unusual voter activity
UP Assembly Elections: What does the break-up of Vote Share tell us?
UP elections: ECI data indicates enthusiastic voter turnout in the farming community

The post 15 seats in UP Assembly elections won by a margin of less than 1,000 votes: ADR appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that it would hear a plea by the NGO Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) that is seeking a stay on the controversial electoral bond scheme, in January.

On behalf of ADR, the plea was filed by Advocate Prashant Bhushan who informed the court that around “6,000 crore had been collected under the scheme so far, which is being misused by the party in power”. The contentious electoral bond scheme had earlier been flagged by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Election Commission of India (ECI) as well.

“Not more than half of the political parties have submitted their annual audit report for 2018-19. BJP and INC (Congress), the two largest national parties, are yet to submit their audit reports for 2018-19,” the petition says.

It says the total income through electoral bonds as declared by the parties that have submitted their audit reports for the 2018-19 fiscal amounts to Rs 599.07 crore, which it says is only 23.5 per cent of the total electoral bonds bought that financial year.

“In other words, the two national parties together could have cornered more than 70 per cent,” it asserts.

Going by these calculations, the total worth of the electoral bonds bought in 2018-19 would be about Rs 2,550 crore.

According to The Telegraph, the petition says, “As of November 2019, nearly 76.5 per cent of the electoral bonds purchased during 2018-19 cannot be traced to any specific political party. The delay and non-compliance by political parties defeats the purpose of any such reporting.”

Live Law reported that ADR had filed a writ petition in 2017, challenging the provisions of the Finance Act 2017 which paved the way for anonymous electoral bonds. These bonds were introduced after amendments made by the Finance Act 2017 to the Reserve Bank of India Act 1934, Representation of Peoples Act 1951, Income Tax Act 1961, Companies Act, Income Tax Act and Foreign Contributions Regulations Act.

Earlier this year, the apex court had asked political parties to furnish details of donors, amounts and details of payments made through electoral bonds, to the poll panel. However, most political parties ignored this order and opposed the plea stating that the electoral bonds scheme would ensure ‘transparency and accountability’ in political funding.

Bhushan sought a stay on the scheme stating that it was akin to accepting a bribe, money laundering and just another way to channelize black money. He also asserted in his plea that, it was only the general citizens who wouldn’t know of the details of the donations.

It has been found that the proof of the knowledge of donations is only and only being denied to the public, because the promissory notes carry an alphanumeric code that can be used to track the donation. Hence, the tracking can very well be done by the finance ministry and they will tabulate all information of the donors – including the ones of their bank accounts, transaction and most importantly political preferences.

ADR said that the amendments made to the above mentioned acts, opened doors to funding from foreign companies, thus legalizing anonymous donations.

The complete petition by the ADR may be read below.
 

Concerns by RBI and ECI

Last week, ADR had moved the apex court for an interim stay on the scheme citing reports that the Central Government had gone ahead with the scheme even after objections raised by the RBI and ECI.

The ADR in its plea had stated that the RBI had warned that the scheme had the “potential to increase black money circulation, money laundering, cross-border counterfeiting and forgery.”

The plea had also noted the objections raised by the ECI which, calling for its withdrawal, described the scheme as a “retrograde step as far as transparency of donations is concerned.”

The ECI had also mentioned that the scheme’s implementation opened up the possibility of shell companies being set up for the sole purpose of donations to political parties.

Since the plea on the matter has been ignored twice, Advocate Bhushan filed a fresh plea once more and the bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde, Justices Bhushan Gavai and Surya Kant agreed to an early hearing.

No bones have been made by the opposition about how BJP has gained a lion’s share of electoral bond donations. Out of the Rs. 6,000 crore bonds that were sold in 2018 – 19, bonds worth Rs. 4,500 crore went to the BJP. It has also been noted that the BJP arm-wrested the RBI into the sale of expired bonds and not just that, it opened an extra window of the sale of bonds just before the Karnataka elections, which is completely against the rules set by the RBI.

The influx of illegal turned to legal funding, is the only reason the BJP is fighting tooth and nail to continue with electoral bonds. It has up until now been overturning and quashing all guidelines set with regards to the electoral bonds scheme. Whether or not the plea by ADR will be successful is to be seen. But can the BJP answer one question – after wanting to paint itself a saint by propagating transparency and accountability in the election funding process, why is it so scared to reveal the sources of its donations?
 

Related:

Electoral bonds: Why the BJP is batting so hard for it
Govt Made SBI Accept Expired Electoral Bonds Sold In Illegal Window
Election Commission reveals Tatas gave Rs 356 crore to the BJP in 2018-19
Yes, its BJP that received maximum corporate donations in 6 years: ADR report
SBI issued electoral bonds worth Rs 3,622 crore in March and April: RTI
Electoral Bonds: SC directs all parties to reveal political funding details to EC

The post Foot in the door? SC agrees to hear ADR’s plea seeking stay on disputable electoral bonds scheme appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 

Image Courtesy: News18
 

3. Party-wise donations (above Rs 20,000) with incomplete/incorrect PAN details of donors
 

• BJP collected the highest donations worth Rs 8.10 cr (55.29%), having incomplete/incorrect PAN details of donors during this period. 85.02% or Rs 6.887 cr of its total donations having incomplete/incorrect PAN were collected in FY 2014-15.
   
• INC did not declare complete/correct PAN of donations worth Rs 5.614 cr (38.32%), second highest during the period from FY 2012-13 to 2017-18. 95.30% of its total such donations worth Rs 5.35 cr were collected in FY 2016-17.
   
• No donations declared by AITC and CPI between FY 2012-13 and 2017-18 had incomplete/incorrect PAN details of donors.

 

4. Types of non-disclosure of donations (above Rs 20,000) with incomplete/incorrect PAN details of donors    

 

The post Discrepancies in PAN details in Donor Details of National Parties: ADR appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
Representation of Political Parties
A sharp increase in the number of political parties in Sikkim who contested elections between 2014 and 2015 is visible.(ADR). In the Sikkim Assembly Elections 2019, 9 political parties and independents were in the fray. These included 2 national political parties, 2 state political parties and 5 registered unrecognized parties. In comparison, during the 2014 Sikkim State Assembly elections, 5 political parties were in the fray. These included 2 national political parties, 2 state political parties and 1 registered unrecognized party.

Voter Turnout
The voter turnout for the Sikkim Assembly 2019 was 81% whereas voter turnout in 2014 assembly elections was 42%.

Vote Share of Winner 
The winners of the Sikkim State Assembly elections, 2019 won by an average of 52 % of total votes polled. In the 2014 elections, winners won by an average of 57% of total votes polled.        
 
Winners with highest vote share : 22 (69%) winners won with 50% and above of the total votes polled in their constituency. The top 3 winners who have attained the highest vote share during the Sikkim State Assembly Elections, 2019 are given below: 

Table: Winners with the highest vote share

Winners with Least Vote Share: 10(31%) winners won with less than 50% of the total votes polled in their constituency. The top 3 winners who have attained the least vote share during the Sikkim State Assembly Elections, 2019 are given below: 
 

 Table: Winners with least vote share
 
Party Wise Winners with Less than 50% of Vote Share: Out of 15 winner of Sikkim Democratic Front, 4(27%) won with less than 50 % of total votes polled in their constituencies and 6(35%) out of 17 winners from Sikkim Krantikari Morcha won with less than 50% of total votes polled in their constituency.

Representativeness of Winners
All the winners of the Sikkim State Assembly Elections, 2019 won with an average of 42% of the total registered voters. This implies that the winners represent on an average, 42% of the total electorate. In the Sikkim State Assembly Elections, 2014 won by an average of 24% of the total registered voters.

Party-wise Winners with less than 50% of Representativeness: Out of 15 winners of Sikkim Democratic Front, 13(87%) have won less than 50% of votes of the total registered voters in the constituency and all 17(100%) winners from Sikkim Krantikari Morcha have won less than 50 % of votes of the total registered voters in the constituency.

Margin of Victory for Winners
Winners with Least Margin of Victory : The details of top three winners with least margin of victory are given below:

Table: Winners with   Least Margin of Victory

Winners with Highest Margin of Victory: The details of the top three winners with the highest margin of victory are given below:

Table: Winners with Highest Margin of Victory 

Performance of Women Winners in Sikkim Assembly Elections, 2019

• Among the 32 winners,3 are women.
• Among the women winners, Raj Kumari Thapa (Sikkim Democratic Front) from Rangang-Yangang Constituency has won with the highest vote share, i.e. 53.47 % in her constituency and 13.27% of the margin of victory.

Performance of Re-elected Winners in Sikkim Assembly Elections, 2019

• Out of total 9 re-elected winners 7(78%) have won with a vote share of 50% and above. 

 
NOTA

• 5 re-elected winners have won with less than 10% of margin of victory whereas only 2 have won with more than 20% of the margin of victory. The NOTA button instated by the ECI in 2013 gave the voters an option of rejecting all the candidates in their constituency. The total number of votes polled for None-of-the-above option were 3039 votes during the Sikkim State Assembly Elections, 2019.

The post Understand the changes to the electoral scene in Sikkim: ADR appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image Courtesy: amarujala.com

An ADR release said that the award was received by Prof Trilochan Sastry, Chairman and Founder Trustee of ADR, and Dr Ajit Ranade, Founder Trustee of ADR and conferred by Vice President of India M. Venkaiah Naidu in the presence of Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, at an awards ceremony held at Hotel ITC Maratha in Mumbai.

ADR, which works for electoral reforms, is among 14 organizations and individuals to receive this award in one of the six categories, for taking the initiative in implementing innovative activities during the general elections to urban local bodies since 2016.

The ADR release read, “SEC Maharashtra was the first in India to introduce e-filing of affidavits by candidates and digitize the affidavit data back in 2016. In collaboration with SEC Maharashtra, ADR enabled generation of candidates’ and winners’ reports for local body elections held in Maharashtra. In the last four years, ADR and Maharashtra Election Watch published 77 reports on Local Body Elections which were covered in regional and national media including prominent newspapers with wide reach in Maharashtra like LokSatta, Lokmat, Pudhari and Maharashtra Times.”

Related Articles:

1. Yes, its BJP that received maximum corporate donations in 6 years: ADR report
2. 27 per cent of Winners of MCD Elections Have Criminal Cases: ADR
3. Creating communal division is the only goal of the ruling party

The post ADR receives ‘Democracy Award’ from SEC, Maharashtra appeared first on SabrangIndia.

About a third (32%) or 401 of 1,266 candidates whose affidavits were studied have declared assets worth Rs 1 crore or more. Among the major parties, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) are notable for having all (25 from TDP and 17 from TRS) ‘crorepati’ candidates.

Nearly half of all candidates have declared they have a graduate degree or above, while 1.5% have declared they are just literate, and 5.2% that they are illiterate.

About a third of candidates are aged between 25 and 40 years, while more than half are between 41 and 60 years.

The first phase of polling began on April 11, 2019. ADR studied the affidavits of 1,266 of the 1,279 candidates who are contesting during this phase. Affidavits of 13 candidates were not analysed as they were not properly scanned or were incomplete.

Candidates filing nomination papers for contesting an election have to submit an affidavit (Form 26) furnishing personal details that include details of income and assets, with PAN and income tax return as proof. A candidate also has to list the details of any criminal cases he or she has been charged with. If a candidate is found to have filed a false affidavit, he or she can be imprisoned for up to six months and/or made to pay a fine.

The affidavits filed by the candidates contesting the 17th Lok Sabha elections are publicly available at the Election Commission’s website.   
 
Criminal charges
Of the 146 candidates facing serious criminal charges, 12 have declared they have been convicted in the past. Persons convicted are debarred from contesting elections for six years from the date of conviction, but only if they have been sentenced to imprisonment of two years or more.

Of the Congress’s candidates, 27% (22 of 83) face serious criminal charges, 19% (16 of 83) of the BJP’s, 13% (4 of 32) of the Bahujan Samaj Party, 40% (10 of 25) of the YSR Congress Party, 8% (2 of 25) of the TDP and 18% (3 of 17) of the TRS.

Ten have declared they are facing cases related to murder, 25 have declared cases related to attempt to murder, four related to kidnapping, 16 related to crime against women and 12 related to hate speech, the ADR analysis shows.

Among the major parties, 42% (35 of 83) candidates contesting on Indian National Congress (Congress) tickets have declared criminal cases against themselves, compared with 36% (30 of 83) candidates from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and 25% (8 of 32) candidates from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

Among the members of parliament (MPs) of the 16th Lok Sabha, 55% who faced criminal charges were from the BJP, IndiaSpend had reported on March 30, 2019.

The highest proportion of candidates facing criminal charges are from YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) which is contesting from Andhra Pradesh, 52% (13 of 25) of whose candidates face criminal charges.

Among other parties based in south India, 16% (4 of 25) of the TDP’s candidates and 29% (5 of 17) of TRS’ candidates have declared criminal charges.

As many as 37 of the 91 constituencies where polling is taking place during the first phase have three or more candidates facing criminal charges. Eight candidates facing criminal cases are contesting from the Nandyal constituency of Andhra Pradesh, seven from the Nizamabad constituency of Telangana, and six each from Narsapuram constituency of Andhra Pradesh and Khammam constituency of Telangana.

Assets of Rs 1 crore or above

A third of candidates have declared assets worth Rs 1 crore or more, as we have said before. Among the major parties, 69 (83%) out of 83 candidates from the Congress, 65 (78%) out of 83 candidates from BJP, 15 (47%) out of 32 candidates from BSP, 22 (88%) out of 25 candidates from YSR Congress have declared assets worth more than Rs 1 crore.

The top three states with the highest number of crorepati candidates are Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh: 132 (42%) candidates from Andhra Pradesh, 77 (18%) candidates from Telangana and 39 (41%) candidates from Uttar Pradesh have assets worth more than Rs 1 crore.

Candidates Who Are Crorepatis
While a third of all first-phase candidates have declared they owned assets worth Rs 1 crore or more during the last financial year, the three richest candidates in terms of assets are Konda Vishweshwar Reddy of the Congress from Chevella constituency of Telangana with total assets worth more than Rs 895 crore; Prasad Veera Potluri of YSR Congress Party from the Vijayawada constituency of Andhra Pradesh whose total assets are worth more than Rs 347 crore; and Kanumuru Raju from the Narasapuram constituency of Andhra Pradesh who joined YSR Congress Party in March after leaving the TDP, who has total assets worth more than Rs 325 crore.

The top three candidates with the highest declared income during the past financial year are from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, too. Jayadev Galla and Beeda Masthan Rao from TDP have income of more than Rs 40 crore and Rs 33 crore, respectively. Galla has mentioned business, agriculture, salary from parliament, income from investment and rents as his sources of income, while Rao has stated that his income is sourced from business, rentals, remuneration from a business group (BMS Group), shrimp farming and export, bank interest and pension from the state government.

Gaddam Ranjith Reddy of the TRS has an income of more than Rs 16 crore, which he said are sourced from salary, rentals, business and agriculture.

The party-wise average asset ownership is highest for the 25 candidates of YSR Congress Party at Rs 62.94 crore ($9.1 million), followed by the 25 TDP candidates with average assets worth Rs 57.77 crore ($8.3 million). The 17 candidates of the TRS have average assets of Rs 45.87 crore ($6.6 million).

For the 83 candidates each of the Congress and BJP, the average assets’ worth is Rs 21.93 crore ($3.1 million) and Rs 14.56 crore ($2.1 million), respectively.

There are 23 candidates who have declared no assets. The candidate who has declared the least assets (excluding the zero assets candidates) is Nalla Prem Kumar of Prem Janata Dal (unregistered) from the Chevella constituency of Telangana, who has declared a bank balance of Rs 500.

Rajendra Kendruka of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) from the Koraput constituency of Odisha has declared Rs 565, and Alakunta Rajanna, an independent candidate from Nizamabad constituency of Telangana, has declared Rs 1,000.

Educational qualifications
Of 1,266 candidates, 526 (42%) have declared their educational qualification to be between 5th and 12th standard, while 619 (49%) candidates have a graduate degree or above.

Five candidates fielded by the BJP have a doctorate degree, while the Congress has three such candidates.

On the other hand, 19 (1.5%) candidates have declared they are just literate and 66 (5.2%) that they are illiterate.

Age profile

About a third (32%) or 411 of 1,266 candidates are in the 25-40 years age group, while more than half (53%) or 671 candidates in the 41-60 years age group, as per the affidavits analysed by ADR.

At the same time, 172 (14%) candidates have declared their age in the group 61-80 years while two candidates are aged above 80 years

(Ahmad is an intern at IndiaSpend).

Courtesy: India Spend

The post Of 1st Phase Candidates, 32% Crorepatis, 49% Graduates, 17% Facing Criminal Charges appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The post 69% income of political parties in India from unknown sources: Report appeared first on SabrangIndia.