Ahmedabad: There seems to be no drop in the number of candidates with criminal records contesting in the first phase of the Gujarat assembly election on December 9.
This came out after Gujarat Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) analysed 923 of a total of 977 affidavits filed by candidates contesting the first phase of the Assembly election in Gujarat on December 9.
The affidavits of the remaining 57 candidates were either badly scanned or their complete affidavits were not available on the Election Commission of India’s website.
As many as 137 candidates were found to have declared criminal cases against them, about 15 percent of 923 candidates. Of these 137, 78 candidates have declared serious cases pending against them, which include murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, crimes against women and the like.
Party wise, 22 out of the 89 BJP candidates have criminal cases against them, 31 out of the 86 Congress candidates have criminal cases against them, and 34 of the 416 independent candidates have criminal cases pending against them.
One candidate – Mahesh Chhotubhai Vasava has declared a murder case pending against him while eight candidates have declared that they have cases of attempt to murder registered against them. Similarly, two candidates have cases of rape under Section 376 of the IPC registered against them, while one candidate has declared that he has a case of outraging the modesty of a woman under Section 509 of IPC.
The contest in Gujarat is basically between the BJP and the Congress, despite several candidates having filed their nomination in each constituency going to polls in the first phase.
ADR has classified 21 out of the 89 constituencies as “red alert” constituencies. These are those constituencies where three or more candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves. “This is a situation where voters are left with no choice, as all the candidates who are likely to win, have criminal cases against themselves. We have not observed any dip in the number of candidates who have criminal cases pending against them, being fielded by parties. It is not a good sign for a democracy,” said Jagdeep Chhokar, a founder-member of ADR.
In terms of wealth, there are three candidates in the fray in the first phase who have assets worth over 100 crore rupees. Indranil Rajyaguru, who is contesting on a Congress ticket against CM Vijay Rupani from the Rajkot West constituency, has declared assets worth Rs 141 crore. Former BJP minister Saurabh Dalal (Patel), contesting from Botad, has declared assets of Rs 123 crore and Dhanji Patel of the BJP who is contesting from Surendranagar has declared a wealth of Rs 113 crore.
While the average wealth of candidates contesting the first phase of Gujarat assembly elections is Rs 2.16 crore, there are two independent candidates – Prakashbhai Unadkat and Rafiq Chauhan – who have declared zero assets in their affidavits. These two have, in their sworn affidavits, said they do not have a single rupee worth of wealth with themselves.
In terms of education, 580 (63 %) candidates have declared their education qualification to be between 5th and 12th grade. Of the remaining, 217 candidates (23.5 %) are graduates or post graduates while 76 candidates have declared themselves to be illiterate.
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