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| Criminals, rich abound in by-elections too | | |
SANT KUMAR SHARMA
Jammu, November 3, 2009:
In the elections for three state legislative assemblies held last month, several candidates facing criminal charges were fielded by political parties. Many won.
On November 7, bye-elections are being held for vacant seats in seven legislative assemblies and one Lok Sabha seat in seven states. This time also, over two dozen candidates (29 to be exact) contesting these elections have cases pending against them.
These bye-elections are being held in Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Rajasthan, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
Of these 29, at least 12 are facing criminal cases for their alleged involvement in heinous crimes like rape, murder and attempt to murder etc. They have been booked under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Candidates facing murder and rape charges have been fielded by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the All-India Trinamool Congress (AITC) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI-M.
The maximum number of candidates with criminal candidates pending against them are from Uttar Pradesh ruled by Mayawati.
These facts have come to light through the perusal of affidavits filed by the contestants before the electoral authorities.
The dubious honour of having the maximum number of candidates with serious criminal cases against them has been bagged by UP. At least six candidates fielded by major political parties, who are serious contenders in the bye-elections, are from UP and one from West Bengal.
In UP, no less than 19 out of 67 candidates are facing criminal charges and this constitutes 28.35 per cent of the contestants. In Kerala, five out of 11 candidates or 45.45 per cent have pending criminal charges against them.
The Congress has given tickets to seven candidates having criminal charges pending against them. In all, it has fielded 25 candidates and this means that 28 per cent of its candidates are facing criminal charges.
The SP led by Mulayam Singh Yadav has fielded five out of 11 candidates (or 45.45 per cent), the BJP five out of 28 (or 17.85 per cent) and the BSP four out of 12 (or 30 per cent) with pending criminal charges.
The candidates with pending serious charges like murder, attempt to murder, theft etc party wise are BSP- four, the SP-two, the AITC-one, the BJP-one, the CPI(M)-one, All India Forward Block-one and Independents-two.
In all, affidavits of 161 candidates were analysed and 23 of them are crorepatis (multi-millionare). The maximum number of crorepatis belong to the SP (six out of 12 or 50 per cent), followed by the Congress (five out of 25 or 20 per cent), the BSP (four out of 12 or 33.33 per cent), the BJP (four out of 28 or 14.28 per cent) and the AITC (two out of nine or 22.22 per cent.
The richest candidates are Mr. Raj Babbar (total declared assets of Rs. 11.70 crore), who is contesting on a Congress ticket from Firozabad, Mr Rajesh Pandey (Rs. 6.77 crore), the BJP candidate from Padrauna (U.P.) and Mr Dimple Yadav (Rs. 5.27 crore), the SP candidate from Firozabad.
From UP, a total of 67 candidates are contesting and of them 16 (or 23.88 per cent) are crorepatis, followed by Chhattisgarh where three candidates out of a total of 15 (or 20 per cent) are crorepatis..
Maximum numbers of candidate with criminal background are contesting from Jhanshi (three) in UP and Alappuzha (three) in Kerala.
The detailed analysis of the affidavits filed by the contestants has been done by National Election Watch (NEW).
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