The Hindu : Lok Satta puts 51 on A.P. watch list

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 21, 2004

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Lok Satta puts 51 on A.P. watch list

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, MARCH 20. The Lok Satta has released, as part of its Andhra Pradesh Election Watch 2004, a list of 51 names of prospective candidates for the coming Lok Sabha and Assembly elections who have criminal cases pending against them or have been acquitted of the charges.

A State Minister, two former Ministers, two members of the 13th Lok Sabha and 11 members of the dissolved Assembly figure in the list.

The list comprises 38 persons against whom cases are pending and the rest have been acquitted. Of the 51 persons, 25 belong to the ruling Telugu Desam Party, 23 to the Congress, one each to the BJP and the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) and one is Independent.

N. Jayaprakash Narayan, national coordinator, Lok Satta, released the list at a press conference here on Saturday. K.G. Kannabiran, human rights leader, V. Ramachandraiah, a retired IG of Police, D.V.V.S. Varma, campaign coordinator, B. Ankaiah, general secretary, Lok Satta, were present.

They said the idea was to reverse the process of criminalisation by trying to prevent candidates with a criminal record from being fielded in the elections. Also, the attempt was to influence the governance agenda, ensure the right to information, citizen's charters, mobilise public opinion in favour of larger electoral and governance reforms and impact political parties' behaviour.

Mr. Narayan reiterated the need for people to try and prevent criminals from getting the party ticket. "Political parties certainly do not wish to encourage criminals and all that is required is public opinion, even in those cases when people with a record of crime, manage to get the ticket," he said.

He said that initially 1,500 names were studied, evaluating them against nine criteria, after which it was shortlisted to 74. The screening committee met on March 12 to evaluate the information. A review led to 23 names getting deleted as the charges were not serious or were politically motivated or related to political agitations.

Once the list was finalised, the Lok Satta wrote to the four major parties — Congress, TDP, BJP and TRS — attaching the list of prospective candidates with a criminal record who were trying to get the ticket. If the parties had information that showed the committee wrong on the inclusion of the names, they could present it to the Lok Satta before 5 p.m. on March 19. It was only after that deadline that the Lok Satta was making the list public, Mr. Narayan said.

Mr. Kannabiran recalled that the voter had the right to have the complete case history of a contesting candidate, including his criminal record. Mr. Varma reiterated that the endeavour was to see that "law-breakers do not become law-makers."

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