Of the 909 candidates contesting the seventh phase of the Lok Sabha elections, 170 (19 percent) have criminal cases against them, while 127 (14 percent) have declared serious criminal cases against their names, according to a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

Among the major parties, 18 (42 percent) of the 43 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates, 14 (31 percent) of the 45 Congress candidates, 6 (15 percent) of the 39 Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidates, 3 (21 percent) of the 14 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidates have declared criminal cases against their names.

Of the 313 independents, 29 (9 percent) have criminal cases filed against them.

The National Election Watch and the ADR have analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 909 of the 918 candidates contesting the Lok Sabha elections in the seventh phase.

Of the 909 candidates, 159 are from national parties, 68 from state parties, 369 from registered unrecognised parties and 313 are independents.

Fifteen (35 percent) of the 43 candidates from the BJP, 10 (22 percent) of the 45 candidates from the Congress, four (10 percent) of the 39 candidates from the BSP, one (14 percent) of the 22 candidates from the AIADMK, 7 (29 percent) of the 24 candidates from the DMK and one (7 percent) of the 14 candidates from the AAP and 24 (8 percent) out of 313 independents have declared serious criminal cases against themselves.

In the seventh phase, 33 out of 59 constituencies are red alert constituencies. Red alert constituencies are those where three or more contesting candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves.

While five candidates have declared convicted cases against themselves, 12 have declared cases related to murder, 34 cases related to attempt to murder, and seven related to kidnapping with intent to secretly and wrongfully confine persons.

Twenty candidates have declared cases related to crime against women. Of them, two have declared cases related to rape. But ten candidates have declared cases related to hate speech against themselves.

On the financial status of candidates, the ADR said 278 (31 percent) candidates had assets worth Rs 1 crore and more.

Forty (89 percent) of the 45 candidates are from the Congress, 36 (84 percent) of the 43 candidates from the BJP, 11 (28 percent) of the 39 candidates from the BSP, 9 (64 percent) of the 14 candidates from the AAP and 59 (19 percent) of the 313 Independents have declared assets worth more than Rs 1 crore.

The average assets per candidate contesting in the elections to be held on May 19 is Rs 4.61 crore.

Among major parties, the average assets per candidate for 45 Congress candidates is Rs 17.15 crore, for 43 BJP candidates it is Rs 9.82 crore, 39 BSP candidates have average assets of Rs 5.24 crore, and 14 AAP candidates have average assets of Rs 5.20 crore.

Siromani Akali Dal's Harsimrat Kaur Badal (over Rs 217 crore) and Sukhbir Singh Badal (over Rs 217 crore) from Punjab's Bathinda and Firozpur constituencies, respectively, are among three high asset candidates along with Ramesh Kumar Sharma of the Congress (over Rs 1,107 crore) in Patliputra constituency of Bihar.

On the other hand, Congress candidate from Punjab's Sangur, Pappu Kumar, along with Shiv Charan of the Jai Hind Party from UP's Maharajganj and Sunil Kumar Pandey of the Congress from UP's Salempur are the candidates who have declared zero assets.

The Badal couple (Sukhbir and Harsimrat) have also shown high liabilities in their affidavits with both declaring liabilities over Rs 190 crore. BJP's actor-turned-politician candidate from Gurdaspur, Sunny Deol (Ajay Singh Dharmendra Deol) has shown assets of over Rs 87 crore and liabilities over Rs 53 crore.

On other details like education, a staggering 44 percent or 401 candidates in the seventh phase have declared their education qualifications to be between 5th and 12th. As many as 24 candidates have declared themselves as illiterate, while 29 others have declared to be just literate.

Forty-eight percent or 437 candidates have declared their educational qualification as graduate or above.

As much as 59 percent or 537 candidates have declared their age to be between 25 and 50 years, while 366 or 40 percent range in the age group of between 51 and 80 years. Only three candidates have declared their age to be above 80 years.

Genderwise, there are 96 females or 11 percent contesting in the Lok Sabha phase 7 elections.

(With inputs from agencies)

First Published:May 14, 2019 5:54 PM IST