As many as 134 candidates out of 417 candidates contesting six Lok Sabha and 42 Assembly seats in the third phase of election in Odisha on April 23 next have declared criminal cases against them.
An analysis of the self sworn affidavits made by Association for Democratic Reform and Election Watch said while out of the 354 candidates contesting the Assembly elections 119 candidates have declared criminal cases against them, 15 out of 60 candidates contesting the Lok Sabha elections have criminal cases against them.
Election Watch state Coordinator Ranjan Kumar Mohanty said as many 101 candidates for Assembly and 10 candidates vying for Lok Sabha have declared serious criminal cases against them. He said BJP has the highest number of 30 candidates with criminal cases, followed by BJD (20), Congress (19), and BSP( 5 )contesting the Assembly elections.
Similarly, in Lok Sabha, the BJP has 4 candidates with declared criminals cases, followed by Congress and SUCI two each, BSP, BJD and Kalinga Sena one each.
While BJD has no candidate with serious criminal cases against him in Lok Sabha, BJP and Congress have two each, BSP, Congress and Kalinga Sena have one each. Mohanty said out of the 60 candidates contesting the Lok Sabha elections one is illiterate, two have passed class five, eight have passed class ten, six passed class 12 and fifteen have completed graduation. While ten candidates are graduate professionals, as many as 16 have completed post graduation.
Similarly, among 354 candidates contesting the Assembly elections, there are five doctorates, 61 Postgraduates,49 graduate professionals, 87 Graduates and the rest have qualifications from being literate to 12th class. (UNI)
