EC: Candidates will have to give more info on assets
To check the use of black money in polls, candidates in the five states — going to poll in April-May this year — will have to provide their sources of income, additional information about their assets and that of their entire family to the election commission.
To check the use of black money in polls, candidates in the five states — going to poll in April-May this year — will have to provide their sources of income, additional information about their assets and that of their entire family to the election commission.
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For the first time, the panel has sought information on finances and criminal record in the affidavit to be submitted along with the nomination papers by each candidate. The revised affidavit will be applicable for candidates contesting in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam, West Bengal and Puducherry.
The additional information being sought includes permanent account number (PAN) and when the family individually filed income tax returns.
The Central Board for Direct Taxes had found huge discrepancies in income details of over 300 politicians in the recent past. The details in the affidavits did not match the actual income of the candidates in many cases, an election commission official said.
"The additional information being sought will help agencies in acting faster," said James M Lyngdoh former poll panel chief.
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Against the existing format of declaring the number of assets and its total value, the candidates will now be required to submit details of each property along with its present market value and cost at the time of purchase or inheritance.
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Against the existing format of declaring the number of assets and its total value, the candidates will now be required to submit details of each property along with its present market value and cost at the time of purchase or inheritance.
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The candidates will also have to provide details about every type of investment in shares, bonds or insurance schemes or liabilities in the affidavit.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
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