The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) recently released their report, stating that 423 candidates contesting for the second phase of elections hold assets worth Rs 1 crore and more and 251 candidates have criminal cases against them.
Tamil Nadu has the highest number of such candidates. It also has the most number of declared crorepatis.
The Phase II of the Lok Sabha (LS) elections are set to be held on 18 April. A total of 97 parliamentary constituencies across 13 states will witness the voting.
ADR is non-governmental organisation which looks at the criminal background, financial, educational and other details of candidates contesting for elections. They analysed 1590 out of the 1644 candidates contesting for the 18 April election.
Amongst the major parties, 87% of candidates from the Indian National Congress (INC), 88% of candidates from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and 96% of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) are declared as crorepatis.
The average asset per candidate contesting in the LS elections Phase II is Rs 3.90 crores.
However, for the BJP, the average asset per candidate is over Rs 21 crore and for the Congress, it is over Rs 31 crore.
The highest asset of more than Rs 417 crores is held by Congress’s Vasanthakumar K, contesting in Tamil Nadu’s Kanyakumari constituency.
41 candidates declared their annual income to be more than Rs 1 crore while 919 of them did not declare their Income Tax details.
The report also states that 251 candidates have criminal cases against them and 167 have serious criminal cases which include offences with punishment of five years or more, non-bailable offences, assault, murder, kidnap, rape, crimes against women among others.
20% of BJP candidates and 32% of INC candidates have declared serious criminal cases against them.
41 out of 97 constituencies are termed as red alert constituencies. These constituencies have three or more contesting candidates with declared criminal cases against themselves.
George Tirkey, from Odisha contesting for the INC has the highest number of cases, with 41 cases pending against him, including charges such as attempt to murder, robbery with attempt to cause death or grievous hurt and criminal intimidation.
According to the report, most number of candidates have an educational qualification of postgraduation. 44% of candidates have declared their educational qualification to be between fifth and twelfth. While 35 candidates have declared to be just literate, 26 candidates are illiterate.
The report also reveals that just 8% of the candidates are women.
This analysis is based on the candidates' affidavits and nomination papers, obtained from the Election Commission of India’s website.
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