*Forfeited amount worked out at nearly Rs 60 lakh
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Dec 27: Over 75 percent candidates, who contested just concluded Assembly elections, have lost their security deposits for their failure to secure minimum votes required to avoid this humiliation. What to talk of independents and those belonging to lesser-known outfits even the candidates of mainstream political parties like Indian National Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party, National Conference and People’s Democratic Party got forfeited their security deposits.
According to the analysis of the Election Commission of India data, out of total 831 candidates, who contested elections to 87 seats of State Legislative Assembly, 626 failed to secure their security deposits as they could not get more than one sixth of the valid votes polled in their respective constituencies.
Among the 626 candidates are those who contested elections on the mandate of mainstream political parties like Congress, BJP, NC and PDP. The candidates of these parties were too completely rejected by the electorates in large number of Assembly segments as the voters didn’t find them competent to represent them in the Legislative Assembly.
Indian National Congress tops the list of such political outfits as its candidates failed to secure deposits in 46 Assembly segments. Bharatiya Janata Party is on the second spot with its candidates forfeiting deposits in 39 Assembly segments in Jammu region as well as Kashmir valley. Archrivals in the political spectrum of Kashmir valley, National Conference and People’s Democratic Party candidates lost deposits in 28 Assembly segments each.
Notably, those contestants, who earlier remained Members of Legislative Assembly and participated in the polls as independents or from the platform of other political parties, have also lost their deposits as people didn’t find them worth to represent them in the Assembly anymore. Even former Ministers are among those who lost their deposits.
Prominent among these are former Minister and senior National Conference leader Mustafa Kamaal from Gulmarg, former Ministers, Gulchain Singh Charak from Bishnah, Thakur Puran Singh from Darhal, Raman Mattoo from Habba Kadal and outgoing MLAs Jagdish Sapolia from Basohli, Lal Chand from Bani, Charanjeet Singh from Kathua and former MLA Ashok Sharma from Kalakote.
Batmaloo Assembly segment is the only constituency where maximum number of candidates lost their security deposits as they failed to secure the minimum possible votes required to stake claims for return of deposits from the Election Commission of India. In this constituency, only the winner and the runner-up could save their deposits while all the 14 others forfeited their security deposit.
Batmaloo is followed by Jammu West, Noorabad and Sopore Assembly segments where 13 candidates each lost their security deposits. Likewise Batmallo, only winner and runner-up candidates saved their deposits while all others forfeited the same in these three segments. Leh is the only constituency in Jammu and Kashmir where the contesting candidates didn’t lose their security deposits because there were only two candidates in fray and one emerged as winner and another runner-up.
As per the Election Commission of India guidelines, the general category candidates have deposited Rs 10,000 each while as candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe categories deposited Rs 5000 each at the time of filing nomination papers. In this way, the deposits forfeited by 626 candidates are nearly Rs 60 lakh.
“The forfeited amount of security deposit relating to elections to Legislative Assembly are credited to revenues under 0070-Other Administrative Services, 02-Elections/101 Sale Proceeds of election forms and documents/104 Fees, Fines and Forfeitures/800 Other Receipts”, official sources said.
“The forfeiting of deposits by such a large number of contesting candidates indicates that even those who don’t keep any liaison with the general public jump into fray”, political observers said, adding “large number of candidates contest elections without any seriousness and just for name sake”. In this way, they put unnecessary burden on the election machinery as well as security agencies as each contestant is provided minimum prescribed security during polls.
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