252 candidates in first phase have cases against them: report

A total of 252 candidates in fray in the first phase of Lok Sabha election on April 19 have criminal cases against them, which included seven with murder and 19 with attempt to murder charges, according to an analysis of the selfsworn affidavits of the contestants by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and the National Election Watch.

The analysis was carried out on 1,618 out of the 1,625 candidates contesting the first phase of Lok Sabha election.

The data show that 161 persons have declared cases of serious crimes registered against themselves, 18 have charges of crimes against women, and 35 have cases related to hate speech. Fifteen out of the 1,618 candidates have declared cases where they have been convicted.

Regarding political parties, all four candidates from the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) have declared criminal cases against themselves. The party with the least number of contes

On the wealth metric, there are 450 ‘crorepati’ candidates with the maximum (69) from the BJP

tants declaring criminal cases was the BSP, with 11 (13%) out of 86 candidates having criminal cases.

On the wealth metric, there are 450 ‘crorepati’ (whose net worth is greater than ₹1 crore) candidates in the first phase, with the maximum of 69 from the BJP, followed by the Congress at 49, the AIADMK at 35, the DMK at 21, the BSP at 18 and the Trinamool and the RJD at four each.

Contestants of the AIADMK have the highest average assets at ₹35.61 crore followed by the DMK at ₹31.22 crore, the Congress at ₹27.79 crore, and the BJP at ₹22.37 crore.

Congress’s Chhindwara candidate Nakul Nath is the richest with ₹716.94 crore assets followed by Erode candidate Ashok Kumar (AIADMK) possessing ₹662.46 crore, and Sivaganga candidate Devanathan Yadav. T (BJP) having ₹304.92 crore in wealth.