Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW), a nationwide campaign comprising several NGOs and other citizen-led organizations made a stunning revelation after the results of the Assembly Polls in Maharashtra, Arunachal Pradesh and Haryana declared on Thursday, Oct 22.
Before the polls, the group conducted election watches in all the states and compiled reports. Using these reports which consisted of details of the candidates based on the affidavits and criminal, financial and other background information the group studied nature of the elected MLAs.
NEW and its associates analysed the affidavits and reports of all the elected representatives in the Assembly polls and found that 50 per cent MLAs in Maharashtra, 17 per cent in Haryana, 5 per cent in Arunachal have pending criminal charges.
Out of the 4944 candidates who contested in the elections in the three states, 900 candidates had pending criminal cases. And a total of 161 won the polls. The cases include a long list of crimes like dacoity, robbery, attempt to murder and extortion.
When it comes to financial backgrounds, a total of 284 crorepatis won a seat in one of the three legislative assemblies.
When study analysed the relation between assets and chances of winning, it was found that the higher the person's assets better was the chances of winning.
Higher percentage of contestants with assets worth more than 10 crores won the polls.
48 per cent of the contestants will higher assets were elected from Maharashtra while 53 per cent of such contestants won the Arunachal Pradesh polls and 44 per cent were elected in Haryana.
In the other section of the study, the aspect of women representation was analysed. Even though the parties want the country to believe that they support women in the assembly, the study shows that the reality is quiet different.
While Maharashtra elected 12 women MLAs in 2004 Assembly polls, in 2009 the number slipped to 11. Arunachal which had no women MLAs previously has three this time, while 2005 Haryana Assembly which had 11 women MLAs earlier has just 9 now.
These findings raise several disturbing questions about the elected as well as the electorate. While assets and gender are found to be deciding factors, something as grave as criminal charges and cases are pushed under the carpet and the electorate has turned a blind eye to it.
This could only mean that either the process of election has failed the Indian electorate or India has failed democracy.
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