Raipur: In the second phase, an analytical report released on Friday by Chhattisgarh Election Watch(CEW) and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) said, that 10 percent of the candidates fighting of the Chhattisgarh Assembly elections have criminal records.
The joint team of CEW and ADR found in their research work that out of 953 candidates, 100 (10 per cent) candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves.
Candidates mention their criminal records in affidavit
The joint research team claimed the candidates have mentioned about the criminal records in the affidavit they submitted to the election commission. Among these candidates, offences of a serious nature was registered against the 56 candidates the charges includes causing injury or intent to cause injury, cheating and criminal intimidation, and others. A total of 958 candidates will contest the second phase of the Chhattisgarh elections, but the report has not analysed five candidates as their affidavits were either badly scanned or complete affidavits were not uploaded on the Election Commission of India’s website.
The elections for 20 out of the total 90 Assembly seats in the state were held on November 7, while the remaining 70 constituencies will go to polls in the second phase on November 17. The counting of votes will take place on December 3.
Among the major parties, 13 (19 percent) candidates from the Congress, 12 from the BJP, 11 from the Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (J) and 12 (27 per cent) from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have declared criminal cases registered against them in their affidavits, the report mentioned.
In the ruling Congress, seven (10 percent) of its 70 candidates have serious criminal cases against their names, while the figure is four (6 percent) out of 70 for the opposition BJP, four out of 62 for the JCC (J) and six of 44, or 14 percent, for AAP.
Sixteen (23 per cent) out of 70 constituencies going to polls in the second phase will see three or more candidates with declared criminal cases, the report said.
These are Korba, Lormi, Jaijaipur, Raipur Rural, Mahasamund, Beltara, Patan, Katghora, Akaltara, Durg City, Dharsiwa, Kasdol, Bhatapara, Manendragarh, Jashpur and Bemetara.
Criminal cases filed against ministers
As per the report, the criminal cases are registered against the Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel (Patan), Jaisingh Agrawal (Korba), Devendra Yadav (Bhilai Nagar), Vikas Upadhyay (Raipur City West), Atal Shrivastav (Kota) of the Congress have declared criminal cases, while in the BJP, former ministers Rajesh Munat (Raipur City West), Dayaldas Baghel (Navagarh), Saurabh Singh (Akaltara) and OP Choudhary (Raigarh).
Amit Jogi (Patan), president of the JCC (J) has criminal cases registered against him, he mentionedin his affidavit.
In the first phase elections, 26 out of the 223 candidates had criminal cases against them out of which serious criminal cases were registered against 16 candidates. In the second phase, 1 crore 63,14,479 voters will decide the fate of 958 candidates. Among these 81.41624 lakh are male meanwhile female voters strength has been counted as 81.72 171 voters. The strength of third-gender voters are 684.
