Elections in India : A Tale of Crime, Expenses and Reservations

The two major concerns in Indian electoral system are enormous spending and increased criminalization of politics. While roughly one third of all elected offices (State or National) have members with some criminal charges, the spending in 2009 General elections exceeded the total spend in US General elections held a year earlier. This paper links the two. We develop a theoretical model that views candidates as a strategic choice by the parties. We propose a two dimensional contest function. In this framework we analyze the likely scenarios when a party chooses candidates with criminal records as well as how much to spend for that candidate. Our framework also analyzes the role of reservations. We use records of 36,731 candidates who contested elections at either Loksabha or Assembly level during the last 5 years.The empirical results suggest that:(a) Parties nominate candidates strategically.(b) Parties are more likely to nominate candidate with particular attributes if the other major parties also do so.(c) The most prominent direct response attribute is wealth status.(d) Irrespective of political ideology, parties follow similar strategy