Criminals loom large in UP Assembly elections

As per a UP Election Watch about 25 per cent of the candidates in fray for the first two phases have a criminal record, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Apr 11, 2007, 22:10:31 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Criminals appears to hold sway in UP assembly elections. About 25 per cent of the candidates in fray for the first two phases have a criminal record, says an UP Election Watch. The NGO has analysed affidavits of about 1,500 candidates in fray in the two phases.

If one looks at party wise allocation of tickets to those with criminal record, BSP leads the pack with 33 per cent, followed by BJP 27 per cent, Samajwadi Party 26 per cent and the Congress 20 per cent.

Pawan Rana of the NGO said as many as 11 candidates have submitted false claims about their criminal records to the Election Commission. "They have claimed that there are no cases pending against them whereas records in Allahabad High Court show there are criminal cases pending against them," he said. BSP and BJP each has fielded three such candidates whereas two each are from SP and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD).

The maximum number of cases, 59, are registered against Madan Bhaiya, RLD candidate from Khekra followed by Rajpal Saini of BSP from Morina.

There are 126 of the 792 candidates in the second phase whose property is worth Rs one crore. In all, 65 per cent candidates are PAN cardholders with maximum from RLD. But then there is Sadjujaman of Congress in Muzaffarnagar, who has property worth Rs two crore, but does not have a PAN card.

Congress heads the list in average financial liability of the candidate with a figure of Rs 9.4 lakh, followed by SP of Rs 6.57 lakh and then BJP 6.45 lakh. The BSP candidates have the least financial liability of Rs 4.5 lakh.

In this depressing scenario, the bright side is that educational qualifications of the candidates have improved. BJP has fielded 68 per cent candidates who are at least graduates, Congress is second with 59 per cent followed by SP 50 per cent and BSP 45 per cent. Parties have also opted for younger candidates with the bulk being in the age group of 41 to 60 years.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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