It’s lose-all for 2/3rd candidates

A LARGE NUMBER OF CANDIDATES LOST THEIR DEPOSITS IN THE LAST ASSEMBLY ELECTION

SHIMLA:A large number of candidates, who throw their hats in the Himachal Pradesh poll ring, generally end up losing their deposits if the results of the past few elections are an indication. Two-thirds of the candidates in the last assembly elections, for instance, failed to secure their deposits.

It’s not just independents and candidates from small parties who met this fate, some candidates fielded by the BJP and the Congress also lost their deposits.

A whopping 304 of the 459 candidates in the fray forfeited their deposits in the 2012 polls. National parties, including BJP, Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Communist Party of India (CPI), CPM and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) fielded 237 candidates of whom 105 lost their deposits despite the fact that these parties polled 84.16% of the total vote share.

The BJP and the Congress had

fielded candidates on all 68 seats, while the BSP had its representatives on 66 seats. Not a single BSP candidate could retain his deposit. Four BJP and two Congress candidates also lost their deposits. CPM candidates, who contested on 16 seats, could secure their deposits in only Shimla and Theog.

Regional parties such as the Lok Janshakti Party, Samajwadi Party (SP), Trinamool Congress and Shiv Sena also tried their luck at the hustings in the hill state only to draw a blank. Not even a single candidate of these parties could secure his/her deposit, and together they could poll only 1.08% of the votes. Political observers attribute it to weak candidates, who were either denied tickets by the leading parties or merely wanted to weaken the frontrunners in the fray.

Five registered but unrecognised parties fielded 56 candidates of whom 55 forfeited their deposits.