The State election authority, the Chief Electoral Officer, has directed the political parties and contesting candidates to publish a declaration indicating criminal cases filed against them.
The instruction comes in the light of the Supreme Court’s judgement regarding people with criminal antecedents contesting elections and the guidelines issued by the Election Commission subsequently on October 10. Accordingly, candidates should publish the declaration in the format C-1 giving information about all the criminal cases against them.
The development assumes significance as an analysis made by Telangana Election Watch in association with the Association for Democratic Reform indicated that 67 (56%) of the 119 MLAs had declared criminal cases against themselves in the last elections. Of these, 46 declared serious criminal cases including murder, attempt to murder and kidnap.
Serious cases
According to party-wise lists published by the election watch agencies, 41 out of the 63 TRS MLAs declared criminal cases against them while seven out of the 21 MLAs of the Congress, nine out of 15 MLAs of the TDP, five out of seven MLAs of the AIMIM and two out of the five MLAs of the BJP declared criminal cases against them in the affidavits filed in the last elections.
The CEO’s office said in its notice that political parties that set up such candidates with criminal antecedents should publish the declaration in format C-2 giving information about the criminal cases against the respective candidates besides putting up the same on their website.
The declaration should be published at least on three different dates from the day following the last day of withdrawal of candidature and up to two days before the date of poll.
Newspapers, TV
It should also be published in widely circulated newspapers and in the TV in the constituency concerned. The parties and candidates could download formats C-1 and C-2 from the websites of the Election Commission www.eci.nic.in , or the Chief Electoral Officer (www.ceotelangana.nic.in or obtain the same from the returning officers concerned.
