Analysis shows 15% of candidates contesting in Phase 1 have criminal cases against them
Fifteen per cent of the candidates contesting from constituencies that go to polls in the first phase on December 9 have criminal cases against them.
Of the 923 candidates contesting elections in the first phase, 137 have declared criminal cases against them. Of this 8% (78 candidates) have serious criminal cases including charges that of murder, attempt to murder etc registered against them.
The only candidate with a charge of murder registered against him is Mahesh Chotubhai Vasava from Dediapada. He belongs to the Bhartiya Tribal Party. Two candidates have rape cases filed against them. The analysis was carried out by the Gujarat Election Watch and the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
Of the total 977 candidates, the affidavits of only 923 candidates were analysed as the rest were badly scanned or incomplete. It was also found that 24% (21) of the total 89 constituencies that go to polls in the first phase on December 9 fall in the red alert category.
Red alert is a tag given to a constituency that has three or more candidates with declared criminal cases against them. Of this, seven constituencies are such in which the candidates put up by the BJP and the Congress have criminal cases against them.
It should be noted that in most seats in Gujarat, the fight is between BJP and Congress. Speaking on the red alert categories, Jagdeep Chhokar, of ADR, said that it showed the tragedy of the election process where sometimes people had to pick between two bad candidates.
"When we request the political parties not to give tickets to those with criminal backgrounds, they argue that people can always choose not to vote for them," said Chhokar. He said that in red alert constituencies, the tragedy is that a substantial number of contesting candidates including those from the leading political parties have a criminal background.
"We all know that in a seat even if there are 12 candidates, the potential for winning is of just 2 to 3 candidates. Now when all such potential candidates have criminal background, it is obvious who will get elected," said Chhokar.
Congress leads the pack in both absolute numbers and percentage when it comes to candidates with criminal cases against them. It also leads in terms of candidates with serious criminal cases against them.
Thirty-one of the 86 candidates (36%) from Congress have criminal cases against them of which 20 have serious criminal charges against them. For BJP, 22 of its 89 candidates (25%) have criminal charges against them, of which 10 have serious criminal charges. The AAP, which claims to give tickets only to clean candidates, have two candidates with criminal cases filed against them.
MONEY MATTERS
- Of the 89 BJP candidates in fray for the first phase of polls 76 are crorepatis (85%), while 60 of the 86 candidates (70%) from Congress have assets worth more than a crore.
UNDER ADR LENS
- AAP also has some crorepatis in their midst with six of their 19 candidates declaring a wealth of over Rs1 crore. Analysis was carried out by Gujarat Election Watch and ADR.
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