NEW DELHI: Curiosity over two Portuguese citizens — BJP MLA Glen Ticlo Fernandes and Goa Vikas Party MLA Caetano “Caitu” Rosario Silva — becoming members becoming members of the Goa Assembly prompted Roshan Shah (38), an entrepreneur, to file an RTI in the PMO requesting information about MPs and MLAs who are foreign nationals or hold passports of other countries.
“The reply I received surprised me. My query was directed to the Election Commission which wrote to me saying that they had no such data available. It was then I realised how easy it was for a foreign national to fight elections in India and to get elected to Parliament,” said Shah. According to a report from Ahmedabad, to test this hypothesis, Shah decided to contest the elections not from one, but two seats in Gujarat.
“As I filled the form and my candidature was scrutinised, I realised that nowhere do they ask the candidates to state on oath that you are an Indian citizen. They ask about criminal records and assets and liabilities but what about the basic rule that only Indian citizens can contest elections. This shows how poorly the candidates are scrutinised by the returning officer,” said Shah.
After his candidature was cleared in the scrutiny, Shah wrote to Chief Election Commissioner VS Sampath and Gujarat Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Anita Karval stating clearly that he was a Canadian citizen and asking why his candidature was not cancelled. “Had my intentions been malafide, I would not have revealed my citizenship. I am trying to show how poor the process of scrutiny is. How easy it is for anyone to contest a poll in India. I have not lied on oath. There is nothing in the election nomination forms that wants candidate to disclose citizenship,” said Shah.
He said it is time the EC makes it mandatory for candidates to reveal their citizenship. “We also need to know how many of our sitting MLAs and MPs, who frame laws for India and its states, are passport holders of other countries.”
It is surprising that we have no such data,” said Shah. He added that more time should be given to returning officers to closely scrutinise what candidates write on their forms. “This is very important if we want to clean up politics,” said Shah.
Chief Electoral Officer, Anita Karval said the Election Commission had no mechanism to check candidates’ citizenship. “We don’t have any such mechanism to check if a candidate is an Indian citizen or not. We assume that if not an Indian citizen, he will not be contesting,” said Karval.
