Karnataka polls: 38% of candidates have not passed PU exams

Nearly 38.4 per cent of the 2,586 candidates, who are contesting the May 10 Assembly elections in Karnataka, have not passed the pre-university examinations.

According to the Association for Democratic Report, 37 candidates have not received formal schooling and 528 candidates have studied till Class 10. Only 447 candidates have completed PUC.

Only 17 per cent of candidates are graduates and 13 per cent of the candidates hold professional graduate degrees. Twenty-two doctors are contesting the election.

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A handful of women in the fray

Out of these statistics, only 186 or 7 per cent of the total nominees are women. A majority of women are contesting as Independent candidates (62) and represent smaller parties (61), with AAP fielding the highest number of women candidates (17).

BJP, which has fielded candidates for all the 224 seats, has given tickets to only 12 women candidates. Of the 218 candidates, who have received Congress tickets, only 11 women have made it to the list. JD(S) has given tickets to 13 women and 195 male candidates.

Tara Krishnaswamy, the co-founder of Political Shakti, said such underrepresentation is distressing.

"We are in a thoroughly unrepresentative democracy. Even though we are 50 per cent of India’s population, we are the biggest minority and if we are fielded in such small numbers then we can't have any critical voices in the decision-making,” she said.

“Passing a Women’s Reservation Bill seems to be the only way of improving women’s representation in both Assembly and Parliament,” she added.

Oldest and youngest nominees

At 92, Shamanur Shivashankarappa, the Congress candidate from Davangere South is the oldest candidate contesting the election, followed by JD(S) Yadgir candidate Dr A B Malakareddy (87).

Congress has fielded four candidates above the age of 80 years while JD(S) has two octogenarians in the fray. The remaining five, aged over 80 years, are contesting independently.

The youngest of the candidates (25 years old) are numbered 12, contesting the election independently. A total of 160 candidates, between the ages of 25 and 30 years, are contesting the May 10 polls. The highest number of aspirants are in the age group of 41 to 50 years years.

Hundred-crore club

Close to 60 candidates belong to the Rs 100-crore club. In fact, independent candidate Yousuf Shariff, who is contesting from Chickpet, Bengaluru, is the richest with a total declared asset of Rs 1,633 crore.

He is followed by BJP’s Hosakote candidate N Nagaraj who has assets worth Rs 1,609 crore. Congress’s chief ministerial aspirant and KPCC President D K Shivakumar has assets worth Rs 1,413 crore. The Govindarajanagar candidate from Congress, Priyakrishna, also belongs to the club, ringing in a total net worth of Rs 1,156 crore.

In total, the Congress has 22 candidates with more than Rs 100 crore in assets, followed by the BJP (19), JDS (10) and other parties (9).

Priyakrishna has the highest liabilities (Rs 881 crore) among all the candidates followed by D K Shivakumar, JD(S) K Narayan Raju and BJP’s Ramachandra Gowda S V.

Twenty-two independents and two candidates from smaller parties have declared that they have zero moveable and immovable assets.