LS Elections 2019 First Phase: Congress Has Richest Candidates, Highest Number Of Those With Criminal Charges

While calls to purge the democratic process of the elections by undoing any scope of people with criminal backgrounds taking part are going on for sometime, nothing much have changed on the ground, reports India Today.

In a study conducted by Non-governmental organisations National Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), It is found that Congress party has the highest number of candidates with criminal charges with 35 out of its 83 candidates for the first phase of Lok Sabha polls starting 11 April 2019.

On the other hand, 30 out of 83 BJP candidates are facing similar cases. Congress also has larger proportion of candidates with serious criminal offences against them. The study shows that 37 out of 91 constituencies are under red alert as three or more candidates with criminal backgrounds are contesting. Twenty-seven per cent of Congress candidates have serious cases against them while 19 per cent of BJP candidates are in a similar soup.

Non-governmental organisations National Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) analysed affidavits filed by 1,266 out of 1,279 candidates at the time of filing nomination papers. The study was made to check financial and criminal background of the candidates.

Out of them, 213 have admitted that they are facing criminal charges, while 146 are are accused of serious charges with 12 admitting convictions, 10 among them have revealed that there are murder cases against them too. In addition, there are 16 candidates who are facing cases of crime against women.

Cases filed under various sections of IPC and CrPC against some of these candidates include charges of rape, attempt to murder, kidnapping for ransom or murder, kidnapping women to forcefully marry among others.

Among the richest candidates, the Congress candidate for the Chevella in Telangana is the richest among all with declared assets worth Rs 895 crore. YSR Congress’ Prasad Veera Polturi, contesting from Vijayawada, at Rs 347 crore-worth of declared assets is at the second place.

In all, around 22 per cent of candidates have declared assets worth over one crore and more. The average assets per candidate is found to be at Rs 6.63 crore. The average asset for Congress is at 21.93 crore per candidate followed by 14.56 crore for BJP.