NEW analysis on Uttar Pradesh elections

As the campaign for the fifth and final phase of elections ends on Monday evening across nine states and Union territories, here is an analysis of the entire five-phase elections in Uttar Pradesh state as provided by the UP Election Watch (UPEW), part of National Election Watch (NEW).

The election watch body, which is working on electoral and political reforms, has so far analysed 1360 affidavits from 80 constituencies in total for all phases to give information about the contestants’ education qualification, assets, criminal records, number of women candidates and many other details.

According to the study, 16.1% of candidates of the total 1360 i.e. 219 are contesting with criminal antecedents, and 118 of them with charges of heinous crimes which includes, murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, extortion, etc.

Among the major political parties, Samajwadi Party (SP) tops the list with 40 candidates (total contestants 75) with criminal cases registered against them, followed by BSP 29 (out of 80), BJP 24 (71), Congress 19 (69), NCP 3 (11) and RLD 2 (7). Out of these SP has 24, BSP is next with 20, BJP has 13 & Congress has 8 candidates who are charged with serious offences.

Besides, there are 40 Red Alert constituencies where 3 or more contesting candidates have criminal background. Among these Chandauli and Ghaziabad are at the top with 7 such candidates followed by Gautam Budhha Nagar with 6 candidates charged with criminal cases.

Analysing the asset details, it is observed that 240 out of 1360 candidates in this elections are millionaires (crorepatis). BSP 49, BJP 45, Congress 44 and SP’s 42 candidates are in the list of crorepati. Furthermore, among the major parties, the average asset per candidate for Congress is Rs. 14 crores, BSP is Rs. 5 crores, RLD is Rs. 4 crores, BJP & SP are Rs. 2 crores each along with 20 independent faces.

The study further gave account of the number of women candidates which are just 100 as compared to 1268 of men. Of the total contesting candidates made available by the Election Commission of India: 1368, BJP has the maximum number of female candidates 10 followed by Congress, SP and BSP, six candidates each. However, among the 563 independents, there are 35 women who had filed their nominations.

* National Election Watch (NEW) is a congregation of over 1200 NGOs and other citizen led organisations functioning across the country. By doing election watch for all States and Union Territories, it is working on electoral reforms to bring qualitative changes in the functioning of democracy and governance in India.