Criminal cases against 959 candidates contesting elections in five states, 136 illiterate

How much the nexus of crime has increased in the country's politics can be gauged from the fact that 18 percent of the candidates contesting assembly elections in five states of the country have criminal cases registered against them.

Of these, 12 percent cases are related to serious crimes. Along with this, parties have also fielded people accused in cases like murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, crimes against women etc.

This claim has been made in the report of electoral rights body Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) after analyzing the affidavits of 8051 candidates out of 8054 candidates contesting the assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram.

The interesting thing is that candidates of national parties have the highest number of criminal cases registered against them. This has happened despite the tall claims of the bigger parties not to give tickets to candidates with criminal antecedents.

It also underscores the need for urgent electoral reforms in the country.

There is no dearth of money for the candidates contesting the elections. 29 percent of the candidates contesting the elections are crorepatis. In this case, 66 percent of the candidates contesting elections in Mizoram have assets worth more than Rs 1 crore. If we talk about the average assets of the candidates contesting the elections, it is around Rs 3.36 crore.

There has been an increase in the number of educated candidates contesting the elections. Educational qualification of 3794 candidates is graduation or above. And 136 candidates are illiterate.