In the lead to the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, TIMES NOW, India’s leading English News channel announces ‘Swachh Neta: Mission for Clean Politics’, with an aim to educate and empower the citizens to make an informed voting decision.
Led by the insights from the common voting behaviour patterns of Indian voters which is largely driven by inadequate information about electoral contestants, ‘Swachh Neta’, a voter welfare initiative urges all Indian voters to do a thorough background check on the candidates prior to voting.
In the recent All India Survey 2018 released by ADR, an important factor emerged that while 97.86% of the Indian voters do not want candidates with criminal antecedents in the Parliament and the State Assembly, 36.67% voters don’t know about the criminal records of the candidates contesting elections. Swachh Neta aims to bridge this indifferent and detached approach to embrace a clean political ecosystem by driving the importance of Involvement, Scrutiny and Background Check in making the right voting decision. TIMES NOW has launched www.swachhneta.com in partnership with Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), facilitating a background check on the candidates in the various constituencies on the parameters including qualification, criminal record, financial income and assets.
Commenting on the Swachh Neta initiative, MK Anand, MD & CEO, Times Network said, “TIMES NOW actively champions initiatives that lead to systemic reform. Our pursuit to effect meaningful change has been aptly captured in our brand promise – ‘Action Begins Here’, that we try to live up to. Swachh Neta comes at an opportune time when transparency and accountability in the political and electoral system of the country is the need of the hour. Through this endeavour we want to empower our viewers to bring positive change through informed and well researched voting.”