EC doesn’t have any mechanism to check a candidate’s background
State and national political parties also give the party ticket to the wining candidates irrespective of his/her antecedents. (Photo: DC/File)
Hyderabad: Over 90 per cent of corporators and municipal heads contesting the polls do not mention the nature or number of criminal cases against them while filing their nomination papers.
As per the Election Commission’s regulations, it is mandatory for a candidate to file an affidavit mentioning his or her total assets and criminal records (if any) or face disqualification.
However, over 90 per cent candidates ignore this clause. That apart, the EC has no mechanism to check a candidate’s criminal background unless the Opposition submits proof.
According to a 2003 order issued to the chief electoral officers of all the states, if any candidate does not file the affidavit at the time of submitting the nomination papers, the returning officers shall give a notice to the candidate pointing out the requirement of filing the same, mentioning pending criminal cases (if any), assets, liabilities and educational qualification.
Padmanabhan Reddy, secretary of the Forum for Good Governance, said, “Corporators and municipal heads are the state’s future leaders and their antecedents should not be ignored. Even the huge amount of funds allotted by the state to municipalities has no accurate records of expenditure as no proper auditing is done at the corporations.”
There have been certain cases where candidates who do not belong to SC/ST have managed to contest elections from reserved seats by giving false declaration or on the basis of false documents.
“Citizens should bring to the notice of the election returning officer if the contesting candidates fail to mention their criminal records or false documentation once the affidavit is made public,” added an expert.
Meanwhile, representations sent to the State Election Commission to send a candidate’s affidavits to the income-tax department (with regard to declaration of assets), and the police authorities (to verify criminal records) have not been of much use. The EC accepts the nominations of Parlia-ment, state legislative or municipal candidates without getting a clean chit from the tax or police departments.
State and national political parties also give the party ticket to the wining candidates irrespective of his/her antecedents.
The EC should immediate expose the candidate’s affidavits through the media, because the time between the nominations and the elections is hardly two weeks. Citizens depend more on local municipal representatives, than MLAs or MPs. The elections for corporators and municipal chiefs are as crucial as MP/MLA polls, added experts.
In Telangana State, TRS municipal heads have the highest number of criminal cases TRS (10). Followed by BJP (3), Congress and TD with one each. While in Seemandhra, TD leads with 11 and YSRCP with 5.
( Source : dc correspondent )
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