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ADR Report on Karnataka MPs 2009

17 May 2009 - 10:38am — shekhar_mittal

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Date: May 16, 2009

National Election Watch1 (NEW), a nationwide campaign comprising of more than 1200 NGOs and other citizen led organizations, has been working on electoral reforms, improving democracy and governance in India. It has analyzed 7473 affidavits of candidates contesting in all the states. This is a press release for results of these elections for Lok Sabha constituencies in the State of Karnataka.

National Election Watch, Karnataka is a network of NGOs, civil society organizations, volunteers, and several eminent citizens.


Highlights

  1. Of the 28 LS constituencies in Karnataka, the BJP has won 19 seats, the INC 6, and JD(S) 3 seats. No Independent candidate has been elected to the LS.

  2. Total number of winners with Criminal Records = 9 (i.e. 32% of 28 winning MPs), compared to 4 (i.e. 14% of 28 MPs) in 2004.

  3. All political parties with winning candidates, have winners with criminal records: BJP has 6 , JD(S) has 2 and INC has 1.

  4. There are 8 criminal cases of serious nature on the winners. These include:,

  • Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings or any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs

  • Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony

  • Voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means

  • Injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class

  1. 25 of the MPs from Karnataka are Crorepathis. The MPs with less than 1 crore of declared assets are S. Parkirappa (Raichur), Nalin Kumar Kateel (Dakshin Kannada) and Ananthkumar Hegde (Uttar Kannada).

  2. The average asset of the winners is 7.36 crores and average liabilities are 80 lakhs.

  3. Three of the winners have not furnished their PANs.

  4. Karnataka is represented by only 1 woman MP.

  5. About 39.29% of winners are graduates, 14.29% are Post Graduates or Doctorates and 25% have completed only 12th standard education.


Matters of concern The criminalization of politics continues to be a concern, with an increase in the number of MPs representing Karnataka in the 15th Loksabha. In addition 5 of the winners have serious crimes. As media reports seem to indicate, the misuse of monetary incentives to buy votes has increased sharply since 2008 and continues to be a source of threat to real democracy. While voter awareness on this issue is very high, the problem is that those who win after spending huge amounts are unlikely to focus on good governance. They are more likely to focus on recovering the funds they spent and on giving favours to those who supported their campaigns. The entry of big money into politics is another issue. The average assets of the elected MPs is 7 crores and 25 of them are crorepathis. In the 2004 elections, the average assets of the elected MPs was 1.21 crores. The details of affidavit of the candidates are also available on http://www.nationalelectionwatch.org, www.smartvote.in, www.myneta.info which in turn has links to several other websites

1 NEW is currently coordinated by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR)

 


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