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| 48 candidates face criminal cases | | |
Early Times Special
Jammu, December 01:
Former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda has become a household name nationwide during the last one month after being accused of being involved in a 2,500-crore rupee money-laundering scam.
Even as Koda has been remanded to 14 days’ judicial custody, dozens of politicians in Jharkhand are in the fray for the second phase of polling scheduled for Wednesday. A fairly large number of candidates are facing criminal charges and they come from various parties.
National Election Watch (NEW), a conglomeration of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which keeps a watch on elections, has analysed the affidavits filed by several candidates.
The NEW has found that 48 candidates, comprising 36.92 per cent, have themselves declared that they were facing criminal charges. At least 23 of them, in fray during the second phase of polling, have declared in the self-attested affidavits that they were facing serious criminal cases like murder and attempt to murder etc.
Kodarma district tops in the number of candidates with criminal records and six out of eight (or 75 per cent) candidates fall in this category.
All the major political parties like Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Congress, besides regional formations like AJSU and Janata Dal (United) have fielded candidates with criminal records.
In this context, the AJSU and the JMM have the worst records as out of a dozen candidates each fielded by them, at least seven of each party are facing serious criminal charges. All the three JD (U) candidates in fray are also similarly placed.
Congress candidate Roshan Kumar Surin, contesting from Khunti constituency, is the richest having declared assets in excess of Rs 27 crore. Three more candidates have also admitted that they were crorepatis. At least 10 candidates have declared that they possessed assets worth less than Rs 1 lakh each.
An interesting fact that emerged from the NEW analysis is that 66 MLAs were re-contesting. By comparing their affidavits from 2004 and 2009 polls, NEW found that on an average, the assets of these MLAs increased by Rs 49 lakh each (or almost Rs 10 lakh per annum).
In percentage terms, it means a rise of 616 per cent in a five-year term. One can then safely assume that politics is a fairly safe venture where assets grow at a rapid pace. The assets of Sudesh Kumar Mahto, AJSU candidate from Ranchi, rose by a whopping 2,270 per cent in one term as legislator.
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