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Chhattisgarh
Election Watch (CEW) is a citizens' initiative. It is a collective
effort of several NGOs of Chhattisgarh which came together
with the objective of increasing voter awareness and operationalising
their right to know their candidates. CHRI catalysed this
process. The voters'
right to know their candidate was the basis of the Supreme
Court's historic judgement of March 2003. This judgement made
it mandatory for all candidates to disclose their criminal
background, if any, their assets and liabilities including
money owed to government and public financial institutions
and their educational background. The 2003 elections to the
Assemblies of Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan
and Mizoram are the first major state wide elections since
the March judgement.
Volunteers
of CEW fanned out to collect affidavits submitted by candidates
at the time of filing nominations from the office of the Returning
Officers. Collecting affidavits was a difficult task. Armed
with proper credentials and letters from the CEC they asked
for candidates' affidavits only to be told that there were
no provisions for giving copies, they knew of no orders, there
was no photocopier, there was no time or there was no necessity
to give any information. Elsewhere, Returning Officers wanted
assurances that public information in the affidavits would
not be used for 'wrong purposes' whatever that may mean or
asked for letters from the Election Commission to be issued
directly to them by name before they would honour its instructions.
Nevertheless, MPEW was able to secure more than half of the
affidavits filed.
Information
about the financial and educational background and criminal
past (if any) contained in the affidavits were summarised
and tabulated by a team of volunteers co-ordinated by CHRI
in Delhi. Since the information has been taken from the sworn
affidavits filed by candidates themselves and given the limited
time, CEW has not checked its accuracy. CHRI has in its keep
all affidavits collected by volunteers of both Election Watches
and will be happy to provide access to any person who is interested
in reading them.
Mere
information disclosure will not serve its full purpose unless
the information reaches the voters and they make effective
use of this information for making informed choices while
voting. We hope the summarised information in the following
tables will be of help to the voters. Only an informed and
watchful electorate can keep criminals and corrupt elements
away from our legislatures.
CEW
contact person :
Prateek
Pandey - CGCI, 07752-310087 (Tel.)
Manoj Bharti -
MSSVP, 07774-235361, 07774-222590 (Tel.)
Anil
Dwivedi - RIDE, 07774-230653 (Tel.)
Hemlata Sahu
- MSKPP
Mahanand Bagh - SEBA, 07782-223074 (Tel.)
Manisha Sharma - SANKALP, 9827176727 (Mob.)
Vinayak Sen - PUCL, 0771-2422875 (Tel.)
Manikuntala Bose,
07782-227594, 07782-227681, 07782-227594 (Tel.)
Laxmi Jaiswal, 9827113070 (Mob.)
Ramkumar Agrawal, 0771-2424669 (Tel.)
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