More and more political parties in Uttar Pradesh are going the corporate way for selection of candidates for the 2012 Assembly elections.
The old system of selecting candidates, mainly on basis of recommendations, is going for a toss and a more scientific and transparent system is being adopted.
For the first time, major political parties are compiling dossiers of ticket-seekers and some are even opting for interviews before the panel of candidates is short listed. The Congress and the Samajwadi Party have already initiated the process.
The Samajwadi Party, with more than 4,000 applicants for 402 Assembly seats, has already starting interviewing the aspirants and the party, this time, has also sent out party leaders to assess the popularity, acceptance and image of the candidates in their respective constituencies.
The Congress, which has got more than 7,000 applications so far, is checking out the background and understanding of the candidates. “We will be questioning the candidates in the interview to assess their understating of the constituency and its aspirations. Though winnability will be a factor in choosing the contestants, we will also give weightage to education, family background etc.” says a senior party functionary.
BSP president Mayawati had earlier declared that she would re-nominate all sitting candidates. Ms Mayawati is now, apparently, having second thoughts on the issue and has directed police agencies to prepare dossiers on all sitting BSP legislators. “We are filling in details like the connections of a MLA with criminals, his involvement, if any, in such activities and the general perception about him and his work in the constituency. We will submit all these reports within a fortnight to the higher authorities,” admitted a senior police official.
The CM, on the basis of this report, will decided on her list of candidates for the next assembly elections. The BJP, too, is also planning one-to-one interaction with the ticket aspirants instead of just recommendation letters from senior leaders and RSS functionaries. “If political parties stick to this procedure, we can hope for higher educational standards and legislators with clean images in the next Assembly,” says Minakshi Singh, a political analyst.