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<\/picture><\/div>\nPolitical parties failed to fully comply with rules requiring them to disclose why they selected candidates with criminal backgrounds in the recent Assembly elections held in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Puducherry. The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) released its report on September 11.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n The report found that parties did not provide the required reasons for selecting several candidates facing criminal cases, despite Supreme Court and Election Commission directives on the issue.<\/p>\n C-7 disclosures missing for 191 candidates<\/strong><\/p>\n A total of 8,848 candidates contested the elections across the five states and Union Territory. Political parties published the mandatory C-7 disclosures for 1,214 candidates, while the required information was unavailable for 191 candidates.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tamil Nadu recorded the highest number of candidates for whom criminal-background disclosures could not be found, at 72. It was followed by West Bengal with 55, Kerala with 27, Puducherry with 12 and Assam with 10.<\/p>\n C-7 form requires parties to explain candidate selection<\/strong><\/p>\n The C-7 disclosure is not limited to stating whether a candidate has a criminal case against them. Parties are also required to explain why the candidate was chosen for the ticket.<\/p>\n They must also give reasons for not selecting a candidate without a criminal record instead of the candidate facing criminal cases.<\/p>\n Supreme Court had ordered disclosure within 72 hours<\/strong><\/p>\n The ADR report noted that the Supreme Court, in 2020, directed political parties to publish the reasons for selecting candidates with criminal backgrounds within 72 hours of their selection.<\/p>\n The court said such decisions should be based on factors such as the candidate’s qualifications, achievements and merit. The possibility of winning an election cannot be cited as the sole reason for choosing a candidate.<\/p>\n Following the directive, the Election Commission instructed political parties to publish the information on their websites, social media platforms and in newspapers.<\/p>\n ADR flags identical reasons in multiple disclosures<\/strong><\/p>\n The report also found that several parties used similar or identical language while explaining why they selected candidates with criminal backgrounds. In some cases, the exact same wording was used for multiple candidates.<\/p>\n Parties commonly cited factors such as public image, social work, political experience, popularity, qualifications and suitability for the constituency.<\/p>\n The report also found instances where parties did not give a clear preference to candidates without criminal cases. Similar wording was used to justify these decisions.<\/p>\n Identical disclosures found in Tamil Nadu and Assam<\/strong><\/p>\n In Tamil Nadu, ADR found identical reasons in disclosures made by parties including the BJP, AIADMK, DMK and Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam.<\/p>\n In Assam, the AIUDF used the same reason while explaining why candidates without criminal cases were not selected instead of candidates with criminal backgrounds.<\/p>\n The BJP also used identical language for multiple candidates. The Gana Suraksha Party, meanwhile, used the same wording in both sections of its disclosures for all its candidates.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Political parties failed to fully comply with rules requiring them to disclose why they selected candidates with criminal backgrounds in the recent Assembly elections held in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Puducherry. The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) released its report on September 11. The report found that parties did not provide the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[34607,21363,34610,34608,22906,34609,26031,34611],"class_list":["post-37087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nation","tag-adr-report","tag-assembly-elections","tag-candidate-disclosure","tag-criminal-candidates","tag-election-commission","tag-election-norms","tag-political-parties","tag-supreme-court-directive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/petrolnews.in\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}