Lok Sabha election: e-filing of affidavits by candidates catches on this poll season

NEW DELHI: The e-filing of affidavits introduced for the first time in this Lok Sabha election has been a hit among candidates as more than 1,800 registrations have been received by the Election Commission till now.

Officials said a total of 1,885 registrations have been made on the various e-portals of state poll bodies and 214 candidates have already filed and submitted their statements of assets and liabilities online.

"It is well expected that the final e-filing registration would cross the 2,000 mark. The experiment has been successful and the initiative would be implemented in the polls that take place in the future," a senior official said.

The affidavits (Form 26) are supposed to be furnished by the candidates at the time of filing of their nomination for contesting a Parliamentary or an Assembly seat.

The e-filing of affidavits has been introduced as it allowed an error-free and user-friendly filing of data by a candidate in the electoral race.

A regular affidavit filed by a candidate includes his personal information like details of assets (including movable and immovable properties), properties and accounts under his or her name in a foreign land, liabilities of the candidate, name of the spouse and dependants, educational qualifications and criminal antecedents, if any.

The filing of the affidavit is a mandatory exercise notified by the EC under the Representation of People Act and if it is not done correctly, the Returning Officer has the powers to reject a nomination after which a candidate cannot participate in the election.

The e-filing facility, however, is only optional for candidates this time as it was thought that a number of tech-savvy candidates are entering the poll fray and it could be introduced as a test case.

According to procedures notified by the EC, after filing the affidavit online, a candidate has to provide the Returning Officer an attested hard copy.

The e-filing procedures is much like the I-T returns filing on the computer.

The EC had late last year run a pilot-project in two Assembly constituencies in south India before deciding to roll it out in a full-fledged manner for the general elections.

The poll panel has stated in its election guidelines that the copy of a candidate's affidavit can be obtained on demand by other candidates, general public and media from the Returning Officer.

The EC has also asked state election panels to quickly upload these affidavits on their respective websites and also paste them for public viewing in their office premises.