EC wants poll candidates to reveal their source of income

Seeks SC order, wants children’s assets, income disclosed

ON THE day it announced elections to assemblies in five states, the Election Commission, underlining its concerns over “the increasing role of money power” in polls, sought a Supreme Court order to make it imperative for candidates to also disclose sources of their income and the income of their spouses and dependent children in their affidavits.

Submitting its reply Wednesday to a notice by the Supreme Court on a PIL, the Commission also said that the Representation of the People Act must be amended to make sure that a candidate is disqualified not only when he has an existing contract with the government but also when any member of his family has a similar financial agreement. For the purposes of the election law, the poll panel said, candidates should have the same yardsticks of uprightness that public servants are bound under service jurisprudence.

In its counter affidavit, the Commission said it has become necessary to not just have details of total assets of the candidates in their poll affidavits but also to make them disclose their sources of income, besides assets and sources of assets of their spouses and children. This, the panel said, would let the voters know whether the rise in assets of candidates is reasonable and from known sources of income.

Advocating pertinent amendments to the RP Act, the Commission said: “The existing format of the poll affidavit does not give any information in respect of the sources of income of the candidate and his family members to enable the electors