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Live Mint
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/Z95M5VNJIU2hE5Tn2qjH3I/One-in-two-BJP-candidates-in-Delhi-faces-criminal-charges.html
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New Delhi
New Delhi: Nearly one in every two Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates in the fray in the assembly election in Delhi, and less than one in four Congress candidates have criminal charges against them, according to an analysis of the self-sworn affidavits filed by 796 candidates and studied by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR).
All told, 129 of the candidates have criminal records, up from 14% in the last Delhi assembly election in 2008.
Other parties don’t fare very well either: 21% of the candidates of the Bahujan Samaj Party and 7% of the candidates of the Aam Aadmi Party, the new broom that promises to sweep clean, have criminal charges against them.
To be sure, these are still charges, and could be politically motivated (as indeed, all the candidates and the parties would have everyone believe). They are not convictions.
In 2008, 30% of the Congress candidates had criminal charges against them; the corresponding proportion in the coming election is 21%. The numbers for the BJP are 30% (2008) and 46% (now).
The study also shows that the number of millionaires in the election fray has gone up from 23% to 33%—which means one in every three candidates has assets of at least Rs.1 crore (or 10 million). Indeed, the average worth of a Congress candidates is Rs.14.25 crore, the number is Rs.8.16 crore for the BJP and Rs.2.51 crore for the AAP. The average worth of a candidate in the coming election is Rs.3.42 crore compared with Rs.1.77 crore in 2008.
Analysts say that given real estate rates in Delhi, anyone who has even a small house within the city would be worth at least Rs.1 crore.
Interestingly, only 280 of the candidates are graduates. The rest have either cleared school or not even done that.