How we profile leaders

Our Leaders section profiles people who hold or seek the highest public offices in India. Voters are entitled to know their record, and these profiles exist to put that record in one place where anyone can check it. They follow the rules below.

What we use

Every fact in a profile comes from a record a reader can open, and the profile links it:

• sworn election affidavits filed with the Election Commission of India, read through the Association for Democratic Reforms' MyNeta archive;
• court orders, judgments and reports of hearings;
• official records of Parliament, state legislatures and governments;
• reports by named news organisations, attributed to them.

We write every profile in our own words. We do not copy biographies from other websites.

How we handle cases and allegations

• An allegation is reported as an allegation. We say who made it, when, and where it was made.
• Every case is listed with its latest status that we could verify: under investigation, pending, stayed, dismissed, closed, acquitted or convicted. We give the date we last checked.
• An FIR, a complaint or a chargesheet is not proof of guilt. We say so on every profile.
• When a court has cleared someone, the profile says so as clearly as it reports the original allegation.
• We do not repeat claims that have been shown to be false, and we do not publish rumours, unverified social media posts or anonymous accusations.

No score from us

We do not rate leaders. The record card at the end of each profile lists only facts that can be checked, such as declared cases, declared assets and election results, each with its source. Readers can say how far they trust a leader in the poll on each profile. The poll shows what readers who chose to vote think. It is not a scientific survey and it is not the view of Bharatverseh.

Balance

We profile leaders of the ruling parties and the opposition by the same rules and the same structure. Where a leader's government or party has answered a criticism, we include the answer.

Right of reply and corrections

Any leader we profile, or their office, can write to devv@bharatverseh.com to point out an error, add a status update on a case, or send a response. We review every message, fix errors quickly, and record each change in our corrections log. Each profile shows the date it was last checked.

Reader poll and your data

The poll stores one cookie in your browser so you vote only once per profile. To stop automated voting, our server also keeps a daily count of votes from each network as an irreversible scrambled code, never as your IP address, and deletes it the next day. See our privacy policy.