UP polls: Of criminals and crorepatis

The Bahujan Samaj Party and ruling Samajwadi Party have fielded the maximum number of candidates with criminal background for the first phase of Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, an election monitoring organisation claimed.

Samajwadi Party tops the chart of crorepati candidates and its nominees' average assets are also the highest compared to others with Rs 87 lakh, it said.

Analysing the affidavits filed by candidates with nominations for the first phase of polls on April 7, Uttar Pradesh Election Watch claimed that BSP tops the list of candidates with criminal background and 35.48 percent of its nominees have such cases pending against them.

People with criminal background form 31.15 percent of Samajwadi Party's candidates, the report claimed.

While Bharatiya Janata Party's share of 'criminal' candidates is 29.63 percent, Congress has 24.20 percent, Jan Morcha (20), RLD (10) and other parties 13.82 percent such candidates, former UP DGP and convenor of UPEW I C Dwivedi told reporters.

This data is based on the affidavits filed by candidates with their nomination papers in the first phase covering 62 districts, he said.

In constituencies like Jasrana, nine candidates against whom criminal cases were pending are contesting elections, Dwivedi claimed.

Though all parties have crorepati candidates, Samajwadi party is the leader having 27.87 percent of such candidates followed by BJP (25.92 percent), BSP (22.58), Congress (17.74) and other parties (5.69 percent), he said.

Interestingly, there are a number of candidates who did not even have Permenant Account Number, Dwivedi said.

As per the data collected by UPEW, the average candidates' asset of SP was the highest at around Rs 87 lakhs followed by BJP with over Rs 80 lakhs, Congress Rs 58.88 lakhs and BSP Rs 55.02 Lakhs.

Candidates like state PWD Minister Shivpal Singh Yadav, Shalil Bishnoi (BJP), Mahendra Singh (SP), Ajay Kapoor (Congress), Premlata Katiya (BJP), Shiv Charan (BSP), who have a number of cases pending against them, did not mention any cases in the affidavit, Dwivedi claimed.