Electoral Performance and Criminal Status of Candidates Contesting the 2004 and 2009 Parliamentary Elections to the Lok Sabha (India) (ICPSR 35512)
Version Date: Feb 6, 2015 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Miriam Golden, University of California-Los Angeles
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR35512.v1
Version V1
Summary View help for Summary
This dataset contains information on the election results for and criminal charges against all candidates contesting elections to the lower house of the Parliament of India, the Lok Sabha, in the 2004 and 2009 elections. These were the first national elections conducted after the 2002 Supreme Court ruling mandating that all candidates running for public office file affidavits with the Election Commission of India prior to the election. In these affidavits, candidates report their criminal histories or pending criminal charges. Only charges for offenses punishable by two or more years of imprisonment, which were lodged more than six months before the candidate filed for candidacy, must be reported. Affidavits were compiled and digitized by the Liberty Institute of India, a New Delhi-based non-government organization, and posted on its website. The investigators compiled election results from the Election Commission of India and criminal status data from the affidavits. The unit of analysis is the individual candidate, and the dataset includes each candidate's name, party affiliation, election year, geographic area (state and parliamentary constituency), election results (votes received, win/loss, and rank among candidates), and whether or not charges were filed against the candidate.
Citation View help for Citation
Export Citation:
Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage
Smallest Geographic Unit View help for Smallest Geographic Unit
Parliamentary Consituency
Distributor(s) View help for Distributor(s)
Time Period(s) View help for Time Period(s)
Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection
Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes
-
All electoral data included in this dataset is from the Election Commission of India (downloaded October 2007 from Election Commission of India Web site.
-
Data on self-reported criminal status of candidates is from the Liberty Institute of India (downloaded May 2009 from the Liberty Institute of India Web site). The only data point input from this source was whether the candidates reported being charged or not. Please refer to the source dataset for further data regarding the candidates' convictions, assets, and liabilities.
-
Devesh K. Tiwari of the University of California-San Diego assisted in the creation of this dataset.
Sample View help for Sample
The dataset includes records for all candidates running for election to the lower house of Parliament of India (the Lok Sabha) in the 2004 and 2009 election years.
Time Method View help for Time Method
Universe View help for Universe
Candidates who ran for India's lower house of Parliament (Lok Sabha) in the 2004 and 2009 election years.
Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation
Data Source View help for Data Source
Election Commission of India, 2004
Election Commission of India, 2009
Liberty Institute of India, 2004
Liberty Institute of India, 2009
Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)
Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables
The dataset contains variables about each of the candidates' names, party affiliations, geographic location, votes received and electoral results as well as whether or not criminal charges had been filed against each candidate.
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
2015-02-06
Version History View help for Version History
- Golden, Miriam. Electoral Performance and Criminal Status of Candidates Contesting the 2004 and 2009 Parliamentary Elections to the Lok Sabha (India). ICPSR35512-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2015-02-06. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR35512.v1
2015-02-06 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Created variable labels and/or value labels.
- Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
Notes
These data are freely available to data users at ICPSR member institutions. The curation and dissemination of this study are provided by the institutional members of ICPSR. How do I access ICPSR data if I am not at a member institution?