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provide user friendly simple information for all contesting candidates from all constituencies. Our
websites www.nationalelectionwatch.org and http://myneta.info were updated with live information
of the contesting candidates in each phase of Lok Sabha polls. In fact the site http://myneta.info had
more than a million hits starting from zero during the Lok Sabha elections and quickly reached into top
10,000 sites with respect to hits during these elections.
Latest SMS technologies were used to run a country wide SMS camapign to provide criminal, financial
and educational details of all contesting candidates from their constituency via SMS to the users. The
number of users who utilized these services reached more than a lakh during the campaign. A Helpline
campaign was also initiated wherein, we started a nationwide toll free helpline where information
(criminal, financial and educational) given by candidates in their affidavits was provided to the callers.
It ran as a full-fledged call center during Lok Sabha elections. Using a total of about 25 lines, between
Delhi, Mumbai and other states, we answered about 1000 calls a day during the entire election period.
For all our initiatives we also got great support from the various media organizations. All our press
releases were extensively covered by the media of all types - print, web, radio etc. This led to deliberations
and discussions and leaders of political parties were questioned on issues of criminalisation and misuse
of money based on our reports all over the country. ADR and its network partners were also part of
various panel discussions and debates on large number of TV channels.
An overall summary of the coverage of the Election Watches is given in the Table 1, and a summary of
the findings of the Election Watches is given in Table 2.
Table 1: Coverage by Election Watches
Total Covered
in Election
Watches
% Covered
in Election
Watches
Number of States 28 28 100%
Number of Union Territories 7 7 100%
Number of Constituencies in
all the States and UTs
covered
Number of Candidates in all
the States and UTs covered
Table 2: Findings of Election Watches
Candidates with pending criminal
cases
Candidates with assets of more than
Rs. 1 crore
543 543 100%
8070 7810 96.77%
Number %
1158 15 %*
1249 16 %
Candidates with "Nil" Assets 244 3%
Candidates with liabilities of more
than Rs. 5 lakhs
1056 14%
Candidates without PAN 4863 62%
* Percentage calculated with “No. of Candidates Covered (7810)” as the denominator
10 A Report by ADR