A certain trend in flattery has been crept into the mind of our people from the past five or six years. That is, whenever a Minister, a social worker or a public leader renders monetary or any other form of help for a work which is useful and productive in the locality, the next day words of praise, of accolades occupy a lot of space in every newspaper wishing the same leader success in his future life, more specially for his success in the coming election and vow to support him.

At the same time a trend is also here in our society, that is the habit of forming JAC to execute some social works in the locality by themselves, like repairing of roads, cleaning drains etc while denouncing the inaction of the Government more specially against the inaction of the MLA who represents their constituencies.

While the Ministers and MLAs are counting for votes and no votes in performing their duties in their respective constituencies, no individual, no civil organisation come forward to form JACs to investigate or to ask about the utilisation certificate or a white paper about the MLA Local Area Development Fund which is meant to utilise only for the benefit and welfare of the constituency under the discretionary power of the MLA.

Annual allocation of MLALAD fund is at present Rupees thirty lakhs and it stands at 1.5 crores for a full term of a Legislative Assembly. If this amount is fully utilised in the small constituencies of Imphal area where there is already sign of developments in terms of road, water supply and other facilities, then there may be no need of allocation of other fund from other head in these constituencies.

But nobody seem to have a thought on it. In contrast, whenever an MLA does some beneficial work, which is his/her sole duty, his sycophant followers are making hue and cry placing the MLA next to God as an 'Avatar'.

So the pertinent question here is how far are the voters of our State educated enough to know about their Right to Vote.

The rising tide of violence and the extravagant expenditure during election time make the political mandate a mockery of democracy. This is mainly due to the voters' immune about their Right to know and whom to vote. In other words the ill-informed electorates have been forced to elect corrupt and criminals as law-makers.

PS Vijaya Natharaj, a fellow columnist of the 'Mainstream' rightly says that correct and reliable social, political and administrative information enable the people to be patriotic, role responsive, civilised and politically self-assured so that democracy survives and gain strength. So the quality of democracy therefore depends to a large extent on the degree to which information is ascertained.

In a landmark verdict on March 13, 2003 Supreme Court of India declared it mandatory for candidates to declare their criminal antecedents, wealth, educational qualifications etc. The three-member bench consisting of Justice MB Shah, PV Venkataraman Reddi and DM Dharmadhikari held that 'a voter has a fundamental right to know the criminal antecedents of a candidate and this right was independent of the statutory rights under the election law.

The court thus reassured that the voters have a fundamental right under Article 19(i) of the Constitution to know the antecedents of a candidate for various reasons. Justice MB Shah observed that members of a democratic society should be sufficiently informed so that they might cast their vote intelligently in favour of persons whom they may choose to govern them. The judge said that exposure to public gaze and scrutiny was one of the surest means to our democratic governing system and have a competent legislature.

The voters' right to know is an extension of the Fundamental Right to the Freedom of Expression. And this right to freedom of expression is meaningless without the right to know. It is no secret that election are fought with the help of money power, which is gathered from black sources and once elected to power, it becomes easy to collect tons of money, which is used for retaining power and for re-election.

So let us know the information which are to be furnished mandatorily by the candidate at the time of filling nominations for election which are to be scrutinised by the concerned Returning officers.

1. Whether the candidate is convicted/acquitted/discharged of any criminal offence in the past, and if so, whether he has been sentenced to imprisonment or fine.
2. Prior to the six months of filling nomination whether the candidate is accused in any pending case.
3. The assets, movable or immovable, bank balance etc of the candidate and of his/her spouse and that of the dependants.
4. Liabilities, if any, particularly whether there are any overdue of any public financial institutions or governmental dues.
5. The educational qual-ification of the candidate.