The Hindu : Karnataka News : Get to know your elected representative better

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Friday, Mar 14, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka

Get to know your elected representative better

Swathi Shivanand

Affidavits of candidates who stood for Assembly polls being translated into English
The website will compile data and assets owned by candidates

BANGALORE: Before you sport that mark of indelible ink on your index finger, it might help if you did your homework before you exercise your franchise. An interesting civil society initiative seeks to make it easier for voters to know the candidate seeking to represent them better.

Liberty Institute, a Delhi-based organisation, has taken up the arduous task of translating into English, compiling and digitising the information provided by candidates in their affidavits before the Election Commission for Assembly and general elections, held in the year 2004 in the State. The data will then be put up on its website www.empoweringindia.org

The institute is in the process of translating and compiling about 2,000 affidavits of candidates who stood for Assembly polls and a few hundred affidavits of candidates who stood for General elections. Once the election process begins in the State and affidavits are filed, the institute intends to put up this data also on its website. “People can then compare the data and see how much assets the candidate has lost or gained since the last elections,” Barun Mitra, director of the institute told The Hindu.

The source for the affidavits is the website of the Election Commission of India, which has scanned thousands of pages of these official declarations from every Assembly and Parliament constituency in the country and uploaded them.

“While the Election Commission’s website is for people who are managing elections such as the district administration and their own officials, we intend to make the website for the common man,” Mr. Mitra said.

Typically, each affidavit runs into many pages and can be cumbersome for someone looking for information on a candidate. The institute’s website will compile the scores of scanned pages into one single web page, consisting of details on education status, value of assets owned and criminal charges, if any.

Stating the reason behind the initiative, Mr. Mitra said: “Most media concentrate on VIP candidates. But usually, VIP candidates do not stand for your or my constituency. But we still have to vote for the candidates who stand in our area. This is an attempt to make the process of election more transparent and elected representatives more accountable.”

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