Candidates with major criminal cases are in poll fray

The political parties maintain their policies to engage the leaders with serious criminal cases in the poll fray. Not less than 39 candidates with major criminal background have been nominated by the parties till date. According to National Election Watch (NEW), a nationwide campaign on electoral reforms, at least 63 candidates with ordinary criminal backgrounds are also in the fray for the coming Lok Sabha election.

“Till now 730 candidates have been declared by INC, BJP, CPI, CPM, SP and BSP for Lok Sabha poll 2009. We have found affidavits of 278 candidates (those were submitted by the candidates to the election commission during earlier elections-Lok Sabha 2004 or assembly elections), where it is found that 63 (out of these 278 candidates), have criminal records,” said Anil Bairwal, the national coordinator of the National Election Watch.

Talking to this writer from New Delhi, Anil confirmed that 39 candidates have serious criminal cases like murder, attempt to murder, robbery, theft, kidnapping etc against them as declared by themselves in their earlier affidavits. The list includes 14 candidates from BJP, 13 from BSP, 5 each from INC and SP and 2 from CPI (M), he added.

It may be mentioned that NEW is a nationwide campaign comprising of more than 1200 NGOs and other citizen led organizations working on electoral reforms, improving democracy and governance in India. The forum is active in almost all states of India and has done election watch for all states and Lok Sabha elections 2003.

General (Retd) Shankar Roychowdhury, a member of NEW committee, has meanwhile appealed to the electorate of India to shun those candidates of different political parties with criminal backgrounds. Commenting on so many candidates with serious charges were being fielded by various reputed political parties for the election, Roychowdhury insisted, “Voters must study the records of their candidates carefully and vote for honest, individuals without regards to party, caste or religion.”