Challenging Electoral Malpractices

We can all do something like this ?
http://www.ndtv.com/news/india/union_minister_kamal_naths_election_challenged.php

Election 2009 Analysis

According to ADR's latest analysis of Lok Sabha 2009 elections:
- Number of MPs with criminal charges has increased by 29%
- BJP has the maximum number of elected MPs with criminal charges (43 = 37%). Congress is second (41 = 20 %)
- The number of MPs with 'very serious' charges has declined.
- If voters have a choice, they prefer a clean candidate

- Average assets of Congress MPs is Rs 6.8 Cr, and BJPs MPs is Rs 3.6 Cr (substantial increase in both since 2004)

- Among the MPs, there are 390 graduates including 130 Post-Grads, and 23 PhDs

Full report here: http://tinyurl.com/qglbgu
Shantanu's related blog post: http://satyameva-jayate.org/2009/05/20/kaun-banega-crorepati/ (thanks Shantanu !)

Suresh Prabhu (Shiv Sena), Left party in general are clean and ethical

http://www.sureshprabhu.in/

Ref:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6ZHak1lEr8

No Criminals - Results ... MPs, Cabinet

Thumbs down to criminals in many constituencies.
But 43 from BJP, and 41 from Congress still get in !!! What % of total fielded made it ?
How many of criminal MPs will get into the Cabinet ? Lets wait and watch.

http://www.ndtv.com/news/elections/no_criminals_in_cabinet_please.php

JP of Loksatta wins, inspite of corrupt politics

Dr J P Narayan won a seat in the constituent assembly.
Loksatta spent less than Rs 1 lakhs per contestant.

http://www.loksatta.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=244&Itemid=60

cheers !

Election Funding

The official spending limit for a lok sabha candidate is Rs 25 lakhs, and for constituency candidate is Rs 15 lakhs. However, in practice, much more may be spent : Rs 10-15 Crores for Loksabha candidate and Rs 2-6 Crores for an Assembly candidate (according to Hindu Article : see below). This amount may be doubling every 5 years.

The biggest head (65-75%) in the expenditure seems to be 'buying voters', including liquor expenses. Other "major heads of poll spending are: engaging at least 2,000 active men for campaigning, poll management and counting; hiring or purchasing, and maintaining, vehicles; organising publicity material; opening village-level offices; preparing and distributing voter slips; fetching electors to polling stations; getting star speakers and picking up the tab for their travel, lodging and boarding; and other miscellaneous expenditure"

Hindu : Unofficial cost of fighting elections
http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/06/stories/2009040660001400.htm

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/88992/30-mins-find-out-who-is-funding-which-party-this-polls.html


Donations to political parties are exempt of Income Tax. There are several dummy political parties which do not engage politically but use the party status for tax savings. Election Commission cannot derecognise political parties, though they requested that this power be given to them. As a result, there may be 100s of disfunctional registered political parties in India today.

Many politicians are very rich, with assets work many crores !
http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/89813/declared-wealth-of-candidates-has-gone-up-by-400-pc.html

Criminal Candidates

On Shantanu's blog

From : http://www.lead.timesofindia.com/MediaRoom.aspx?URLName=LeadIndia09.aspx?id=58

"We looked at which parties accounted for how many of the 96 MPs whom we could categorise based on the maximum possible sentence. It turned out that the BJP headed the list with 23 followed by the Congress with 17. It is true that the RJD’s seven, the SP’s nine and the BSP’s five constitute a much larger proportion of those parties’ MPs, but what is clear is that these smaller parties have no monopoly on MPs with criminal charges pending against them. What should be more worrying is the fact that all the parties that fielded candidates with criminal charges against them won 494 of the 543 seats in the April-May 2004 elections."

http://ibnlive.in.com//videos/89301/more-criminal-mps-in-14th-ls-than-ever-before.html

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/89082/india-can-india-will-we-wont-vote-for-criminals.html

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/88235/up-outlaws-to-aid-maya-realise-poll-ambitions.html

BSP is perhaps the most criminalised, then BJP, then Congress ? Are there better options ? Any pointers or insights will be very useful !

But BJP says it is a clean party ??
http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/89555/04_2009/devils_jaitley0504_2a/bjp-has-to-follow-the-nda-arun-jaitley.html
Criminal BJP Candidate - http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/video/video.aspx?id=67872

This news brief mentions some other criminal candidates, including from BJP and 'Apna Dal'
http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/89015/a-look-at-some-of-the-tainted-candidates-in-ls-polls.html
It mentions that there are more than 70 contestants with criminal records contesting elections.