Association for Democratic Reforms
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A backgrounder
As of 2024
BV Shivashankar, Oct 17, 2024: The Times of India
Reforms to make elections free and fair in India — to the extent we see today — are attributed often to TN Seshan, the Chief Election Commissioner from 1990 to 1996 for his proactive measures to curb electoral malpractices. During his time, booth capturing, electoral-roll malpractices and rigging of votes (he famously described it as the ‘rigveda of polls’) became history.
Then came the larger fight for institutional reforms cleaning up the electoral system from ground up, with a greater scrutiny on candidates, parties and much-overlooked trail of electoral spending. It was the little-known non-profit Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which brought about transparency and accountability to our electoral process. Today, voters are free to know the criminal, financial, and educational antecedents of elected representatives and all candidates contesting polls, as all relevant data is available online.
Not just that, they can press the NOTA button on the EVM if they are not ready to support any of the candidates in the fray. While it is now mandatory for all lawmakers to declare their source of income, as well as that of their spouses and------dependents, political parties are also making public their assets, and the common man has access to audited financial statements put out by the I-T department online. As parties have been brought under the ambit of the RTI Act, the ‘Registers of Members’ Interest (which includes business and other interests of MPs) is available in public domain.
Numerous Legal Battles
Just ahead of the recent Lok Sabha elections, the Supreme Court, in a landmark judgment, struck down the electoral bonds scheme, which provided blanket anonymity to donors of political parties. The moot point is that if we have managed to reach thus far, then lion’s share of the credit goes to ADR for the numerous legal battles it has waged, an d its unrelenting efforts aimed at demolishing the wall of opacity that surrounded our electoral and political system.
“Many civil society organisations, NGOs and individuals are striving hard to strengthen the base of Indian democracy by liberating the electoral system from the shackles of money and muscle power.
ADR stands apart as most of the transformation the political and electoral system underwent in the past two-and-a-half decades is due to its efforts,” said V Nagi Reddy, former state election commissioner, Telangana. It all started in 1999 when Indian Institute of Management professor Trilochan Sastry S, sitting at his office on the Ahmedabad campus, got 11 fellow professors to sign up for a non-partisan association. From a rather unassuming start, ADR now has a pan-India presence, partnering with more than 1,000 NGOs for a better reach.
Apart from NGOs, RTI activists and individuals have joined hands with the initiative that primarily focuses on voter awareness campaigns. ADR has at least one partner organisation in each state, like DAKSH in Karnataka.
‘World’s Largest Database’
“As we analyse data on the candidates in all elections, in association with our partner organisations, today, we have the world’s largest database available for the public online. We have analysed the records of more than a lakh candidates in both parliamentary and state assembly elections,” said ADR chairman, founder-member and trustee. He remembers how he had sent a simple message to his colleagues, inviting them for a meeting at his room as he wanted them to join hands to launch ADR. After a long-drawn debate on the pros and cons of running such an organisation, only 11 signed up.
“Many senior leaders were involved in criminal cases and there were many scams. I felt that we should try and bring this to the public’s notice and hopefully end the corruption. The motivation and purpose behind launching ADR was to try and improve the electoral process in a non-partisan way,” Sastry added. Anil Verma, the head of ADR, said the organisation has four vertices, including the National Election Watch, which analyses data about candidates contesting Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha and all state assembly polls.
It also covers civic polls for Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and has a Party Watch that analyses political funding, balance sheets and audit reports of parties.
The Myneta portal is a public repository about poll candidates. This is one of the largest visited web portals and the organisation has also launched the Myneta app that gives every detail about candidates since 2002. Social media is handled by ADR’s communication wing, while the judicial wing is responsible for dealing with with legal cases, including drafting of Public Interest Litigations (PIL).
“It is a well-designed organisation, working efficiently to realise ADR’s motto and executing the ideas that crop up, depending on current developments,” said Harish Narasappa, co-founder and a member of the DAKSH governing council.
Looking For ‘A Perfect System’
While ADR has won as many as 15 major cases so far, a Supreme Court judge said: “ADR’s interventions in court have led to several reforms.” It all started with a public interest litigation (PIL) in Delhi high court, seeking disclosure of criminal, financial and educational background of candidates contesting elections and court upheld the petition in 2000. The Union govt moved the Supreme Court against it, following which, in 2003, the apex court made it mandatory for all candidates to disclose such information.
Not that ADR’s legal recourses have always met with success. Recently, its petition in Supreme Court, challenging the use of EVMs, was not only rejected, but one of the bench members even passed -strictures against it, saying the petition reflected an intention to discredit the EVM-based electoral process, and thereby derail the system.
Although political parties have been brought under the purview of RTI, ADR’s work is still only half-done as the Lok Sabha is yet to agree to make the Registers of Members’ Interest public, while the Rajya Sabha h as complied with it.
“We are looking for a perfect system in an imperfect world. Imperfect people cannot build a perfect system, but we can create a better system by bringing in the required reforms. A wider consultation is required in cases such as those involving EVMs and public funding for parties. Our primary goal is to bring in transparency and accountability to the system,” said Sastry.
