As per the ADR report, the Congress candidates, on an average, own assets worth more than Rs 25 crore. The figure is Rs 17 crore for the Indian National Lok Dal candidates. The average asset owned by the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) candidates is just above Rs 17 crore while that of the Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP) stands at Rs 14 crore. The candidates of the newly formed Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) have average assets worth Rs 25 crore. The average asset of the 223 candidates stands at Rs 4.45 crore. The figur may not present the true picture of candidates that includes an independent, Ashwani, contesting from Sonipat, who has assets worth Rs 2700.
As many as four Congress candidates, including former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Haryana part chief Ashok Tanwar, face cases of serious nature. INLD has three such candidates. The ADR report reveals that 22 candidates have declared serious cases against them.
According to ADR’s founder member Jagdeep Chhokar, those offences which invite maximum punishment of five years or more are termed serious criminal cases. JJP’s two candidates and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s state president, Naveen Jaihind, are also facing such cases. Eight per cent of the total 85 independent candidates fall in this category. BJP has not fielded any candidate with such taint.
Among the senior leaders, Hooda is facing five criminal cases related to land deals and allotment of plots apart from one case lodged by Enforcement Directorate under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002. All these cases were lodged during the BJP regime and Hooda has often terming them as “fallout of politics of vendetta by the BJP government”. Congress candidate from Kurukshetra, Nirmal Singh, is facing a case of attempt to murder as is INLD’s Balwan Singh, from Bhiwani- Mahendragarh.
An FIR was lodged against Ashok Tanwar in Deveria district of Uttar Pradesh in 2007 for “undue influence… at an election”. JJP’s Digvijay Singh Chautala was booked for “deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings or any class by insulting its religion and religious beliefs under section 295A” in Ludhiana district of Punjab in 2015.
An independent candidate from Kurukshetra, Sandeep Singh, is facing eight cases lodged for serious offences including “for promoting enmity between different groups of religion and race and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony under section 153 of the IPC”.
ADR’s Haryana state coordinator Jaskirat Singh said that the criminal cases against large number of candidates is not a healthy trend. However, he admits that the number of criminal cases against Haryana candidates is still much less in comparison to national average of 17 per cent during 2014 Lok sabha polls. “Our process of analyzing the affidavits is still on for 2019 polls but till now it stands at 19 per cent after completion of the process for up to sixth phase of election.”
Meanwhile, Haryana Congress spokesperson Ran Singh Mann said, “Many times cases against leaders are lodged because of political reasons apart from participating in the agitations, which are for the public cause. The cases against senior Congress leaders were lodged to pressurize them.”
