Friday, 17 May, 2024
By: Damini Mehta
In spite of the measures taken there hasn’t been a significant drop in the candidates with criminal cases who contest elections. Image Source: IANS
Data on the ongoing assembly elections shows that 19% of the 2,534 candidates analyzed in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections 2023 had criminal cases against them.
The criminal and politician linkage in India is well known, be it politicians using criminals to strong-arm their opponents and win elections or criminals taking the help of politicians to get out of cases. Politician-criminal nexus took an ugly turn when criminals started getting voted to power as Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) and Member of Parliament (MP) which warranted the need for the election commission to include measures to inform voters about their criminal antecedents. However, in spite of the measures taken there hasn’t been a significant drop in the candidates with criminal cases who contest elections.
Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) analyzes candidate affidavits to collate data on criminal antecedents of candidates for MP and MLA elections. Data on the ongoing assembly elections shows that 19% of the 2,534 candidates analyzed in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections 2023 had criminal cases against them. Of these at least 11% candidates had serious criminal cases. Of the 230 Indian National Congress (INC) candidates analyzed by ADR, 121 or more than half had declared criminal cases against themselves. For the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) this was at 29% whereas 39% of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidates had criminal cases against them.
In the case of Chattisgarh, which went to polls on 7th November, of the 223 candidates analyzed by ADR, only 12% or 26 candidates had criminal cases against them of which BJP topped the list with the highest number of criminal candidates at 25%. This was followed by INC which gave tickets to 10% candidates declaring some form of criminal case against them.
In the case of Telangana, which goes to polls on 30th November, the share of candidates with declared criminal cases is highest across all the five states that went to polls this month. As high as 72% or 85 out of 118 Congress candidates for Telangana that were analyzed had declared criminal cases. BJP came second with 79 candidates or as high as 71% declaring criminal cases. A little less than half or 57 out Bhartiya Rashtra Samiti (BRS) candidates analyzed have criminal cases against them.
In Rajasthan, the BJP is continuously attacking the incumbent Congress government for the rise in crime against women. An analysis of candidate affidavits for the state reveals that around 17% of 1,875 candidates have declared criminal cases against them. Of this, 36 candidates are accused of crimes against women including rape, according to a report jointly prepared by ADR and National Election Watch (NEW). In the previous assembly elections in 2018, around 15% of candidates had declared criminal cases whereas the number of candidates with serious criminal cases at that time was 15%. This time, 9% of the total candidates had serious criminal cases registered against them. Digging deep into the party wise analysis of candidates with criminal cases, 31% of BJP candidates, 24% of INC, 6% of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidates declared criminal cases in their affidavits. Interestingly, AAP, a party which has consistently been claiming to be a clean and corruption free image, also fielded as high as 21% candidates with criminal cases. The situation is somewhat similar when it comes to other less prominent parties such as Rashtriya Loktantrik Party, CPI(M), and Bhartiya Tribal Party.
Clearly, parties across states continue to field criminal candidates for MLA elections. This is in spite of measures taken by the Election Commission of India and the Supreme Court of India guidelines to make elections free and fair and increase transparency to allow more informed choices for citizens.
Interestingly when it comes to criminal MLAs the blame lies not just on parties for fielding them but also for citizens for voting them to power. In the outgoing Rajasthan assembly, 23% MLAs declared criminal cases against them at the time of elections in 2018. In Telangana more than two-third of the MLAs had criminal cases against them, whereas for Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh, 40% (93 out of 230) and 23% (21 of 88) respectively had criminal cases against them when they were voted to power. According to several studies done, the reason behind criminals getting voted to power ranges from lack of choices in some cases to caste dynamics, and patronage system in which communities and individuals benefit if criminal politicians from their community come to power instead of a criminal candidate from the other community. This warrants for a closer look at the reforms needed to keep criminals out of legislatures and therefore out of power.
