Candidates with criminal antecedents continue to bag party tickets for elections. In the Mira-Bhayandar Municipal Corporation elections, the BJP has the largest contingent of candidates with a criminal record.

Of the 93 candidates contesting on a BJP ticket, 25 have criminal cases against them and of these 18 have declared serious criminal charges in their affidavits. It is followed by the Shiv Sena with 18 out of 92 candidates with criminal charges and of these 13 have serious charges. The Congress has ten candidates of the total 74 with criminal charges, five with serious charges.

The Bahujan Vikas Aghadi has three out of 24 candidates with a criminal background, two with serious charges. The serious charges include kidnapping, extortion, criminal intimidation, cheating, forgery, outraging the modesty of a woman.

The Association for Democratic Reforms has carried out the analysis of the affidavits of 506 of the 509 candidates who are contesting the elections for 95 seats in 24 multiple member wards. The elections are on August 20. Of the 506 analyzed candidates 209 have declared assets of more than Rs 1 crore and the average declared assets of each candidate is Rs 2.5 crore.The richest candidate is Harish Agarwal of the Shiv Sena who has declared assets worth Rs 67 crore. Nearly 19% of the candidates elected to the BMC early this year had criminal cases against them.