The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been making so much promising speeches over the debarring of charge-sheeted candidates, too, leads a list of tainted candidates with as many as 28 in the poll fray.
According to the National Election Watch (NEW), a grouping of NGOs, there are at least 63 Lok Sabha candidates, including 28 of BJP, 13 from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), five each from the Congress and Samajwadi Party, who are either facing criminal charges or with a criminal past.
Out the total 730 candidates named by different parties so far, the NEW committee has so far scrutinised affidavits of 273 candidates and found that sixty-three of have criminal records including serious offences like murder, attempt to murder, robbery, theft, kidnapping etc.
After much hullabaloo, the Congress party has finally dropped the candidature of two most high profile leaders: Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar from the electoral fray over their alleged involvement in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
However, as far as BJP is concerned, it has been openly supporting Manoj Pradhan, an accused in the Kandhamal riots from G. Udayagiri Assembly constituency to explore the Hindu vote bank in the riot-hit district of Orissa.
Manoj Pradhan, currently lodged in jail, has been booked in over one dozen cases including murder and arson. The saffron party has, however, refuted all charges saying that Pradhan has nothing to do with the riot case.
Meanwhile, Ashok Sahu, another BJP candidate of the same much sensitive Kandhamal Lok Sabha constituency, has been booked for delivering provocative speech at a public meeting at Raikia town on April 5. An FIR has been lodged in Phulbani against him.
It seems that the political parties never hesitate to whipping the communal passion of people during the election season, despite knowing the fact that it may prove to be more vulnerable for the people in a high sensitive area like Kandhamal where over 40 people were killed and thousands displaced last year in one of the worst religious riots.
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