Sharp rise in candidates with criminal charges in UP polls

The number of candidates with serious criminal charges fighting the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections has risen, despite the number of contestants falling by around 1,600.

Same is the case with crorepati candidates, if one goes by the statistics provided by private election watchdog Association for Democratic Rights (ADR) for about 4,823 of the 4,853 candidates.

It once again underscores the worrying trend of the continuing influence of musclemen and money in electoral battles.
At the same time, the number of women candidates witnessed a decrease from 527 in 2012 to 445 this year.

There are 704 or 14.59% of the 4,823 candidates with serious criminal cases like rape and murder registered against them.

Proportion-wise this is almost double compared to the 2012 polls, where 8.45% (557) of the 6,590 candidates had serious charges.

The BSP has the highest number of candidates with serious criminal charges (123), followed by the BJP (100), the SP (88), the RLD (48) and the Congress (25).
The analysis showed that 152 (38%) of the 403 constituencies has three or more
candidates with declared criminal cases.

When it comes to wealthy contestants, 1,457 (30%) are crorepatis this time, compared to 1,319 (20%) in the previous Assembly polls.

The average of assets per candidate is Rs 1.91 crore this time. In this category, too, the BSP is on top of the list, with 335 (84%) candidates followed by the BJP 302 (79%), SP 243 (79%), RLD 99 (36%), Congress 75 (66%) and independents 182 (13%), among others.

Congress’ Agra South candidate Nazir Ahamad is the richest candidate with
Rs 211.47 crore, followed by the BSP’s Mubarakpur candidate  Shah Alam (Rs 118.76 crore) and the BJP’s Mant nominee Satish Kumar Sharma (Rs 114.29 crore).

Thirteen candidates declared “zero” assets. There are 411 candidates, which excludes contestants with zero assets,  who have declared assets below Rs 1 lakh.