Dummy candidates: From placeholder politics to namesake impostors
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Who are Dummy Candidates? |
With polling for Lok Sabha election having commenced across the country, political parties in Gujarat have also nominated candidates for the polling that will be held in the state on May 7.
Along with their primary choice for the seats, parties in the state and the country have also nominated dummy candidates.
But, who are these dummy candidates?
Dummy candidates serve a technical and legal purpose more than a political one.
If the nomination of a party’s primary candidate is rejected under any circumstances, a dummy candidate could represent the party in that particular constituency as a backup placeholder for the party.
In some cases, the serious candidates also field the namesakes of their rivals as dummy candidates to confuse the voters.
In short, dummy candidates are not serious candidates contesting the election with an intent to win. Moreover, in some cases they might also manipulate the democratic process.
Dummy candidates for fund provisions
Notably, dummy candidates can also be referred to as independent candidates used by parties to multiply their financial resources.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has restricted the expenditure of election campaigning for candidates to a fixed amount. This, however, falls drastically short of the parties and their extravagant political campaigns.
Parties then utilise these dummy candidates for spending on resources such as vehicles, meals for party workers, diesel and petrol vouchers, and even arranging accommodation without any legal hindrances.
Dummy candidates can backfire!
One such case of sly use of the dummy candidate tactic emerged in the 2014 general elections, when a candidate from Chhattisgarh’s Mahasamund, Ajit Jogi, filed his candidature against Chandu Lal Sahu, who was nominated by the BJP.
Jogi filed nominations for ten other candidates with the name Chandu.
Out of these, seven candidates who filed nominations were named Chandu Lal Sahu, while the rest had the name Chandu Ram Sahu.
Jogi’s intention to divide votes on the seat eventually failed.
All ten dummy candidates collectively received 67,208 votes. Congress candidate Jogi lost the election to the BJP's Sahu by about 1,000 votes.
Chandu Lal Sahu received over 4.87 lakh votes, while Jogi received 4.86 lakh.
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