Assam: AUDF has fielded no candidate with criminal background

By Munize Ali, TwoCircles.net,

Guwahati: The Association For Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW) have jointly analyzed the first list of candidates announced by political parties for the 2011 Assam Assembly elections. As for fielding clean candidates, no party has come clean but Assam United Democratic Front of MP Badruddin Ajmal and Communist Party of India (Marxist).

In the first list of 361 candidates by five major parties, only AUDF and CPI-M have fielded clean candidates, otherwise each of other major parties has one or two candidates with criminal background. However, what is satisfying overall is that there are just 6 candidates of criminal background out of 361.

ADR and NEW have been monitoring candidates declared by political parties for the forthcoming assembly elections in Assam. NEW has looked at the first list of candidates declared by AGP, AUDF, BJP, INC and CPI(M) for Assam and checked the records of these candidates with records that NEW has been accumulating since 2003. In spite of leaders of various parties making statements that criminalization should be rooted out of Indian politics, NEW has found that the lists of declared candidates for Assembly Elections include candidates who have pending criminal cases based on affidavits filed in earlier elections. The NEW and ADR on March 17, 2011 revealed various facts related to the criminal background of the candidates.

For BJP, out of the list of 110 declared candidates, NEW was able to find affidavits for 13 candidates filed in previous elections, out of which it found 2 (appx. 2%) candidates have criminal backgrounds. INC, BJP and AGP’s lists include candidates with pending criminal cases based on affidavits submitted during 2006 elections. ADR and NEW issued a joint assessment report on Thursday.

Findings of the assessment

• The lists of AUDF and CPI (M) contain no candidate with pending criminal cases.

• Out of 361 candidates, 6 (2%) have pending criminal cases based on affidavits submitted during 2006 Assembly Elections.

• Similarly, approximately 2% of candidates of BJP, INC and AGP have pending criminal cases (2 candidates each)

• 4 of the above candidates (2 candidates or 1.7% of INC, 1 candidate or 1% of AGP and 1 candidate or 0.9% of BJP) have serious criminal cases related to murder as per affidavits submitted during the 2006 Assembly Elections

• Affidavits of 128 out of the total 361 casting in previous candidates are available with NEW. These were the affidavits submitted by them during previous elections.

For INC, out of the list of 118 declared candidates NEW was able to find records of 73 candidates and it found that 2 (appx. 2%) of them have criminal backgrounds. Similarly, AGP has 2 out of 92 (appx. 2%) candidates with pending criminal cases. Information of candidates declared by political parties has been collected and their names have been matched in the existing database of names prepared by the NEW, based on affidavits filed by these candidates in earlier elections.

Several of these criminal charges are of serious nature, like murder, criminal intimidation, assault, wrongful restraint, etc. In reaction to these findings, Mr. Anil Bairwal, National Coordinator, National Election Watch said that “The effort to purge the political system of corruption and criminalization has to start with the Political Parties and this they begin by denying tickets to tainted political aspirants. To the extent they fail to do that they are merely shirking their responsibility …” Mr. Tasaduk Ariful Hussain, Coordinator of the Assam Election Watch said that the NEW team will “continue to monitor the lists released by the political parties and will continue to pressurize them to live up to their promise of ridding the nation of corrupt and criminal leaders.”