New Delhi: At least 31 per cent of 1,064 candidates in the first phase of the Bihar Assembly election have declared criminal cases against themselves, according to a report by poll rights group Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
A total of 375 or 35 per cent have given their financial assets worth crores of rupees while five candidates have declared zero assets, the ADR report said.
Speaking to ETV Bharat, Jagdeep Chhokar, founder member of ADR, said, "If more than 30% of the candidates have criminal cases registered against them in the first phase of Bihar Assembly Elections which shows that the crime is not decreasing at all."
"There are some parties which have 72% and 73% of candidates with criminal cases against them. On February 13, 2020, the Supreme Court had ordered political parties to publish the entire criminal history of their candidates along with the reasons that goaded them to field suspected criminals over decent people. But, the parties have not declared the name of even one candidate on their website," he added.
Chhokar said that this status clearly shows that political parties have no interest in reforming the electoral system and our democracy will continue to suffer at the hands of lawbreakers who become lawmakers.
He said that it is the responsibility of the Election Commission of India to report the apex court about the political parties that have not declared the names and reasons for giving tickets to candidates with criminal records.
"However, we will also go to the court and inform that the orders given by them weren't implemented. We will inform the apex court that political parties never follow these orders and disqualification of persons from contesting elections is the only right option," said Chhokar.
According to the ADR report, 30 out of 41 candidates of the RJD, 21 out of 29 candidates of the BJP, 24 out of 41 candidates of the LJP, 12 out of 21 candidates of the Congress, 15 out of 35 candidates of the JD(U) and eight out of 26 candidates of the BSP have declared criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits.
Giving description about the candidates who have serious criminal cases registered against them, ADR report revealed, of a total of 41 RJD candidates contesting in phase 1 of Bihar elections, 22 candidates have serious criminal cases registered against them, followed by LJP (22), BJP (13), JDU (10) and Congress (9).
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