Bhartiya Suraaj Manch on Tuesday came up with its rating of the candidates for four constituencies — Chatra, Palamu, Koderma and lohardaga, slated to go to poll on April 10.
After conducting a wide ranging assessment of the candidates into the fray, the Manch has given marks so that electorates can take an informed decision while polling.The organisation, set up to magnify quality of candidates and their ability as people representatives, interviewed most of them before arriving at a conclusion.Interestingly, only two candidates — one from Chatra and another from lohardaga — could score over 70 percent marks.
Highest score of the candidates from Palamu lok Sabha seat went up to 55.20 per cent while from Koderma it could not cross 52.32 per cent. Speaking about the exercise chairperson of Jharkhand State Peoples Jury Justice (Retd) Vikrmaditya Prasad said, “We tried to encourage good candidates who can think and act with honesty. Despite lacking in infrastructure we did a good job and people know this. Media has a role to play in encouraging Manch so that results like this can come with more effective manner.”
The State level jury members that also comprises also retired IAS officer laxmi Singh among others worked on the reports sent from the parliamentary constituencies based on seven parameters set to examine the candidates.
“The jury members asked pointed questions about intellectual quality, knowledge of the constituency, record of public service, local or outsider, vision and manifesto for the constituency, criminal record and image and financial integrity,” informed PK Siddharth, a former IPS officer.He also revealed on the occasion that the jury has to faced several such incidents where candidates called for interviews declined to come or showed good amount of reluctance to face the assessment.
“It is not good for democracy like us when we are there to elect representatives who are expected to do goods for the people and solve their problems. We hope that the exercise of the Manch would be able to generate greater amount of awareness among people about the merit of the candidates,” said Siddharth.
The jury assessed ten candidates from Chatra, 13 from Palamu, five from Koderma and nine from lohardaga. Barring BJP nominee Sudarshan Bhagat in lohardaga none of the national parties’ candidates faired top into the list.While an Independent Sudhanshu Suman from Chatra scored 71.42 per cent marks way ahead of bigwigs. Also, the candidates with good background and political history disappointed in Palamu with very dismal performance, as far as the assessments of the Manch are concerned.
Raj Kumar Yadav of CPI (Ml) scored 52.32 marks in Koderma, while Jorawar Ram of JVM remained ahead for others in Palamu.The organisation, working nationally, is hoping to do better during the upcoming Assembly elections as in this case most of the outcomes are feared to violate model code of conduct as per the Election Commission’s guidelines.