The Punjab Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) have analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 1,276 candidates out of the 1,304 who are contesting the state Assembly elections and found that as many as 25% candidates have criminal cases and 57 constituencies have three or more candidates with criminal cases in the fray.
The report was released in Chandigarh on Friday by ADR trustee Jaskirat Singh and Parvinder Singh Kittna, Harpreet Singh of Punjab Election Watch.
Out of the 1,276 candidates analysed, 228 are from national parties, 256 are from state parties, 345 are from registered unrecognised parties and 447 are contesting independently. Punjab Election Watch and ADR have not analysed 28 candidates as their affidavits were either badly scanned or complete affidavits were not uploaded on the ECI website.
As many as 315 (25%) candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves. In the 2017 Punjab Assembly elections, out of the 1,145 candidates analysed, 100 (9%) had declared criminal cases against themselves. This time 218 (17%) have declared serious criminal cases against themselves, which was 77 (7%) five years ago.
Among the major parties, 60 (63%) out of 96 candidates analysed from the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) have declared serious criminal cases against themselves. As many as 27 (23%) of the 117 candidates analysed from the AAP, 15 (21%) of the 71 candidates analysed from the BJP, 3 (21%) of the 14 candidates analysed from SAD (Sanyukt), 3 (15%) of the 20 candidates analysed from the BSP, nine (8%) of the 117 candidates analysed from the INC and two (7%) of the 27 candidates analysed from the Punjab Lok Congress party have declared serious criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits.
Fifteen candidates have declared cases related to crimes against women. This includes two candidates who have declared cases related to rape (IPC section 376) against themselves. Four have declared cases related to murder (IPC section 302). Thirty-three candidates have declared cases related to attempted murder (IPC section 307) against themselves.
Among the 117 constituencies, 57 (49%) are red alert constituencies where three or more contesting candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves.
When it comes to assets, 521 (41%) of the 1,276 candidates are crorepatis, up from 37% or 428 of the 1,145 candidates who contested the 2017 polls.
The role of money power in elections is evident from the fact that all major political parties give tickets to wealthy candidates. Among the major parties, 89 (93%) of the 96 candidates analysed from the SAD, 107 (92%) of the 117 candidates analysed from the INC, 60 (85%) of the 71 candidates analysed from the BJP, 16 (80%) of the 20 candidates analysed from the BSP, 11(79%) of the 14 candidates analysed from the SAD (Sanyukt), 81 (69%) of the 117 candidates analysed from the AAP and 16 (59%) of the 27 candidates analysed from the Punjab Lok Congress have declared assets over Rs 1 crore.
The average value of assets per candidate this year is Rs 4.31 crore, up from Rs 3.49 crore in 2017.
Among major parties, the average assets per candidate is Rs 13.27 crore among the 117 INC candidates, Rs 12.69 crore among the 96 SAD candidates, Rs 7.69 crore among the 71 BJP candidates and Rs 7.03 crore among the 117 AAP candidates. The 14 SAD (Sanyukt) candidates have assets of Rs 5.36 crore on average, while the figure is Rs 5.27 crore among the 27 Punjab Lok Congress candidates and Rs 4.27 crore among the 20 BSP candidates.
The candidates with the highest assets are Kulwant Singh of the AAP contesting at SAS Nagar at Rs 238 crore, Sukhbir Singh Badal (Jalalabad) of SAD at Rs 202 crore, Karan Kaur (Muktsar) of the INC at Rs 155 crore. Five candidates have declared zero assets.
A total of 653 (51%) candidates have declared liabilities in their affidavits. Among those who have declared the highest liabilities are Rana Gurjit Singh of the Congress at Rs 71.75 crore, Sukhbir Singh Badal of SAD at Rs 66.95 crore and Aman Arora of AAP at Rs 22.88 crore.
Candidates who have declared the highest annual income are Kulwant Singh of AAP (SAS Nagar) at Rs 16.33 crore, Aman Arora of AAP at Rs 5.66 crore, Manpreet Singh Badal of INC at Rs 3.15 crore.
As regards educational qualifications, 695 (54%) candidates have declared it to be between Class 5 and 12, while 483 (38%) candidates are graduates or above. Twenty-four candidates are diploma holders, while 21 have declared themselves to be just literate and 49 candidates are illiterate. Four have not mentioned their educational qualification.
Age-wise, over 70% of the candidates are over 40 years of age, while 349 (27%) candidates are aged between 25 to 40 years. As many as 671 (53%) candidates are aged between 41 to 60 years and 254 (20%) have declared their age to be between 61 to 80 years, while two candidates have declared that they are more than 80 years old.
A total of 90 (7%) female candidates are contesting in this year’s polls, compared to 81 (7%) in 2017.
