3rd phase data:UP Election Watch

Summary Note

The third phase of UP Assembly Elections is taking place in 57 constituencies. UP Election Watch has taken into consideration 859 candidates. There are 273 candidates put up by major political parties, 231 by smaller parties and 355 candidates are independents.

Summary of findings:
There are in all 50 women candidates (5.82%) in the fray in the third phase.
There are 118 candidates who have pending criminal cases against them.
Among the major political parties SP has 20 out of 56 (35.71%), BSP, 17 out of 57 (29.82%), BJP, 15 out of 51 (29.41%) INC, 13 out of 56 (23.21%) and RLD 9 out of 53 (16.98%) such candidates in the fray. There are 26 candidates with pending cases among the smaller political parties and 18 amongst the independents.
There are 23 candidates who were members of the outgoing assembly and had pending criminal cases against them. Out of these 18 candidates have not mentioned about these cases in their current affidavits.
There are 8 constituencies which have more than 4 candidates who have pending criminal cases against them. These are: Amroha (9) –6 candidates, Bareilly Cant (35) –6; Bilaspur (22)—5; Dadraul (49)—5; Moradabad (17) –5; Nawabganj (37)—4; Rampur (21)—4; Sunha (33) –4 candidates.
There are 60 candidates who have declared assets worth more than Rs 1 Crore.
SP leads the list with 14, BSP, 10, INC, 9, BJP,6 and RLD, 4. The INC candidate from Puranpur (const.44) is the richest with a declared asset of Rs. 374.80 Crores.
Accordingly the average candidate asset list is led by INC for the third phase.
There are 18 candidates who have more than Rs 4 lakhs liability but do not have PAN.
There are 626 candidates out of 859 (72.88%) who do not have PAN. RLD leads the list with 67.92% of such candidates. Among the smaller parties 83.98% candidates have not given PAN. Among these LJP has 7 out of 8 (87.50%); IJP has 13 out of 15 (86.66%); Janmorchha , 11 out of 13 (84.61%), RJD, 10 out of 12 (83.33%); and Lokdal 13 out of 16 ( 81.25%).
There are 4 candidates who have declared that they have NIL assets.

The UP Election Watch is a non-partisan civil society alliance for clean politics and accountable governance. Collection of affidavits, collation of information contained there in, and dissemination among voters of this information before the voting day are voluntary civil society efforts. This is intended to enable the voter to make an informed and responsible choice while casting their votes. It is to be remembered that in a democracy there is no position higher than that of the CITIZEN.

The UPEW, along with 200 CBOs/NGOs created a network of citizens across the state for this purpose.

The process has been initiated in the state by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) which is engaged in strengthening democracy in the country through political and electoral reforms.

A high level committee of concerned eminent citizens of UP has been formed to lead this process. This committee is convened by Sri I.C. Dwivedi, Retd DGP.

People's Vigilance committee on Human Rights (PVCHR) has become the coordinating body of the whole process. PVCHR has been involved with the cause of hunger, malnutrition, education, health and governance for the most marginalized and voiceless section of Indian society.

The data has been culled from the affidavits submitted by candidates along with their nomination papers. We have tried our best to be accurate and non-partisan in presenting the data. In case of doubt, please consult the Election Commission’s website, www.eci.gov.in .

DR. Lenin Bibhu Mohapatra
www.pvchr.org www.adrindia.org
14 April 2007