Indian Elections - Remove Criminals and Cash from Indian Elections

Dear Members of Parliament and Leaders of National Political Parties

As concerned citizens, we urge you to restore the countrys faith in our highest democratic institutions by removing the taints of crime and cash from the election process.

We urge you to take immediate steps to ensure that only clean and capable candidates are nominated for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections as well as for the Assembly Elections in October- November in Rajasthan, MP, Chhattisgarh, Delhi and Mizoram.

The process of nominating criminals and spending exorbitantly on election campaigns should stop immediately.

It is ironic that an ordinary citizen cannot get a Government Class IV job with even a small criminal record, but one can become a Chief Minister or Cabinet Minister, with a murder charge against him. The current Lok Sabha has 22.1 \% (120 out of 543) elected MPs with criminal records against them. The number of cases of serious criminal charges against Lok Sabha MPs is 333, with several MPs having multiple cases.

Corruption in society begins with the huge spending in elections. The Chief Election Commissioner wrote publicly that If a candidate is willing to spend ten times more than the prescribed ceiling, it is not out of philanthropy, but in the secure knowledge that he can earn ten times what he spends once he gets to the seat of power. Therefore, exorbitant expenditure in the elections, including distributing cash, liqour, clothes, and other in-kind inducements to voters to influence their votes should be completely stopped.

We reiterate that you actively work to persuading your party leaders to nominate only clean and capable candidates for the elections.

This is a petition sponsored by National Election Watch - a non partisan, non political campaign led by citizens comprising of a nationwide network of 1200 civil society organizations, peoples movements, NGOs, eminent citizens and leaders. The National Election Watch campaign is supported by the Association for Democratic Reforms (www.adrindia.org) and now has over 25,000 records of all candidates, including all the Lok Sabha MP and candidates from 2004. The findings are widely distributed by the print and electronic media which has supported these election watches and campaigns.