Neeraj Rohmetra
JAMMU, Feb 17: About 100 politicians of the State affiliated with several parties have been barred by Election Commission of India (ECI) from contesting any elections – Assembly or Parliamentary.
ECI in its order while referring to Section 24-E of J&K Representation of the People Act- 1957 has disqualified these candidates for their failure to furnish details of expenditure incurred while contesting Parliamentary and Assembly polls on different occasions.
According to an order issued by Avinash Kumar, Under Secretary with the Election Commision of India, in case of 49 candidates, the period of qualification has expired in January this year while as the remaining 47 candidates will not be able to contest any election till June 2014. “This implied that none of these candidates will be able to contest the forthcoming Parliamentary elections slated to take place in April 2014.
Among the 47 political workers barred from contesting any elections, 12 belonged to Kashmir region while as 35 belonged to Jammu region. The maximum number of candidates disqualified from a particularly constituency were 10 and these all belonged to Suchetgarh constituency. The list also included name of former Member of Parliament of People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Tarlok Singh Bajwa, who had also contested Assembly elections. Bajwa was a Rajya Sabha member.
Political workers disqualified, who belonged to Jammu region’s various constituencies include Nagrota (4), Inderwal (1), Gandhi Nagar (2), Jammu West (6), Bishnah (4), R S Pura(3), Suchetagarh (10), Akhnoor (4) and Chhamb (1). Those belonging to Kashmir province included hailed from Pattan (2), Hazratbal (6) and Sonawar (4).
“In case State Government decided to prepone the Assembly polls in the border State, which are other wise due in November 2014, these candidates will not be able to contest those elections in view of this notification”, sources added.
Candidates barred from Jammu region included Parvez Iqbal Tak (Inderwal), Subhash Chander, Mommad Hussain Haji, Najib Ullaha, Vinay Kumar Abrol (from Nagrota); Joginder Singh, Gurdeep Singh Pandey (Gandhinagar), Ashok Kumar Gupta, Ravan Kumar Kashyap, Rajneesh Sharma, Randeep Singh Parihar, Kanwarjeet and Naresh Kumar Sharma (Jammu West).
Others included Ashok Kumar Dubey, Banarsi Dass, Romesh Chander, Kartar Chand Verma (Bishnah); Bishamber Dass Gorkha, Tilak Raj, Surjeet Kumar Bhagat ( R S Pura); Ashok Kumar, Anil Sharma, Tarlok Singh Bajwa, Darshan Singh, Rakesh Kumar, Satish Gupta, Krishan Lal, Kundan Lal Sharma, Girdari Lal, Kasturi Singh (Suchetgarh); Prabu Dayal Singh, Prem Singh, Makhan Lal (Akhnoor) and Biru Mal (all from Chhamb).
From Kashmir Province, the candidates are Ghulam Mohammad Bhat, Mohammad Akbar Rather (Pattan); Dilawar Ahmad, Ghulam Hussain Latoo, Gurmseet Singh, Mohammad Jaffar Hajam, Mohammad Qasim Akhnoon, Mohd. Yaqoob Dunoo (Hazratbal) and Abdul Rashid Lone, Gaffar Mir, Mohd. Shafi Mir and Rafi-ud-Din Ahmad (Sonawar).
In a bid to ensure free and fair elections and curb the use of money power, the Election Commission has disqualified as many as 2,171 candidates in the country for failing to furnish details of expenditure incurred while contesting Parliamentary and Assembly polls.
Sources said that the move by the EC is part of the poll body’s measures to bring in financial transparency and propriety in the conduct of elections which formed the larger part of electoral reforms process. There are several other candidates belonging to various States, who have been barred from contesting elections.
While Maharashtra topped the list with 260 disqualified candidates, it is followed by Chhattisgarh 259 candidates. They are followed by Haryana with 197 candidates, Odisha 188 and Madhya Pradesh 179. Uttar Pradesh has 159 candidates disqualified. Jharkhand has 118 candidates and Tamil Nadu 97.
Among the Parliamentary constituencies, Uttar Pradesh has a maximum of 158 candidates debarred from contesting, while Chhattisgarh has the maximum of 240 debarred candidates when it comes to State Legislative Assemblies.
“While most such candidates are non-serious candidates, some candidates had filed their returns within the stipulated 30-day period but those were not found in proper order and thus stood disqualified”, sources said, adding, “the Commission has sent the list of all such barred candidates to Chief Electoral Officers for further sending such names to the respective Returning Officers”. Earlier, it had disqualified as many as 3,275 contestants in September 2009.
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