99 per cent of independents lost

Over 99 per cent of independent candidates failed to make it to the Lok Sabha this year, registering a negligible decrease of 0.5 per cent from the 2004 polls. According to the Election Commission data, 99.75 per cent out of their total of 3,691 independent candidates-- including 3,491 men and 200 women -- only nine could win while the rest lost the poll battles.

The nine candidates declared winners include Kirodi Lal, who contested from Dausa (Rajasthan), Kalyan Singh from Etah in Uttar Pradesh, Madhu Kora from Singhbhum (Jharkhand) seat, Tarun Mondal from Joynagar in West Bengal and Om Prakash Yadav from Siwan constituency in Bihar. Sadashivrao Dadoba Mandlik from Kolhapur (Maharashtra), Digvijay Singh from Banka in Bihar, Inder Singh Namdhari from Chatra (Jharkhand) and Hassan Khan from Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir also won as independent candidates during the polls.

The highest winning margin was achieved by Kirodi Lal who won the Dausa seat by a comfortable margin of 1,37,759 votes from his nearest rival Qummer Rubbani, another independent candidate, who got 2,95,907 votes. The last Lok Sabha polls also did not augur well for independent candidates as 99.8 per cent of the total 2,385 contestants lost the elections.

A total of five candidates were declared winner during the last general elections, it said. In the 2009 elections, Tamil Nadu had the highest number of independent candidates at 520 but none could win any seat. Uttar Pradesh followed a close second where 490 candidates were in fray for 80 seats and Maharashtra where 410 independents were fighting for 48 seats.

Out of a total of 900 candidates from these two states only two could win their respective seats. There were 304 independent candidates from Bihar, 260 from Karnataka, 223 from Andhra Pradesh and 213 from Madhya Pradesh.

According to the EC data, there were 89 independent candidates from the north-eastern states including 73 from Assam, five each in Tripura and Manipur, three in Meghalaya and only one independent candidate in Arunachal Pradesh. A total of 8,070 candidates, including 7,514 male and 556 female were in fray for the 543 Lok Sabha constituencies spread across the country. No woman independent candidate could, however, win a seat, the data said.