Criminals Rule the Roost

Despite an apex court order on candidates with criminal cases, it has made no dent in the state polls with 328 of them contesting in the first phase alone. The ball is now in the court of the EC

- Sambhav Sharma

BIHAR voted in the first phase of elections on October 28 under the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic with new protocols for casting the ballot. But the state’s notorious and perennial problem of legislators with criminal records continues.

Of the 1,064 candidates, who contested in the first phase, 328 candidates, that is 31 percent, declared that they had “criminal cases” filed against them and 244, that is 23 percent, declared that they had “serious criminal cases” filed against them. These facts and other related information have come out in the joint report of the Bihar Election Watch (BEW) and the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

Of the 328 candidates with criminal records, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) had the highest number of 30, the BJP had 21, the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) had 24, the Congress had 12, the Janata Dal (United) had 15 and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), eight.

A better picture emerges if one looks at the candidates with declared criminal cases against the total number of candidates from respective parties. The RJD had 73 percent candidates with criminal cases in the first phase, the BJP had 72 percent, the LJP had 59 percent, the Congress had 57 percent, the JD(U) had 43 percent, and the BSP had 31 percent candidates with criminal cases.