As many as 55 candidates contesting in the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies in Karnataka have criminal cases against them, according to Karnataka Election Watch (KEW) and the Association for Democratic Reforms, which released their analysis of criminal, financial and other details of the candidates here on Tuesday.

According to the analysis, six candidates from the Congress, nine from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), eight from the Janata Dal (Secular) and 14 Independents are facing criminal cases. Of the 55, 30 candidates face serious criminal cases relating to attempt to murder and crimes against women. Eight of the 28 constituencies — Bangalore Central, Dharwad, Belgaum, Bellary, Koppal, Bidar, Bijapur and Chikkodi — have at least three candidates facing criminal cases.

Assets

IIMB professor and KEW founder-trustee Trilochan Sastry said there were 118 ‘crorepatis’ in the fray, including 27 from the Congress, 26 from the BJP, 21 from the JD(S) and 12 from the Aam Aadmi Party. “Participation of the rich in the electoral fray is evident. They comprise 27 per cent of the 432 candidates. These candidates have declared assets worth more than Rs. 1 crore. The average assets per candidate is Rs. 22.98 crore,” he said.

Richest candidate

Nandan Nilekani of the Congress, who has declared assets worth Rs. 7,700 crore, is the richest candidate in the country, Prof. Sastry said.

R. Prabhakara Reddy of the JD(S) (Rs. 224 crore) and V. Balakrishnan of the AAP (Rs. 189 crore) follow him.

Four candidates have declared zero assets and 51 have declared assets less than Rs. 1 lakh. As many as 15 candidates have declared assets worth more than Rs. 50 crore.