As West Bengal prepares for Assembly elections starting within the next few days, it is perhaps time to have a look at the people who will rule us for the next five years. Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW) have analysed the list of candidates for North Bengal where elections will be held first. They find that:
- 49 candidates, that is 19.37% (of 253 analysed), have criminal charges against them and 27 of them have serious charges like murder, attempt to murder, extortion and theft charges against them (though it must be said that the Left Front government was famous for being quick to slap these accusations against people it didn’t like)
- All major parties have given tickets to candidates with pending criminal cases. The Indian National Congress (INC) has 10 candidates out of 27 (37%); the Communist Party of India [Marxist] CPI(M) 8 out of 32 (25%); the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 8 out of 48 (17%); the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) 5 out of 9 (56 %) and All India Trinamool Congress (AITMC) 4 out of 26 (15%) candidates with pending criminal cases.
- 9 candidates (4%) have property and income worth more than Rs 1 crore (Rs 1, 000,000)
- 143 candidates (57 %) have declared that they have never filed income tax returns.
- 92 (36%) have not given PAN details
- The CPI (M) has the maximum number of candidates, 15 (47%), who have never filed IT returns (ITR), followed by INC with 11 (41%). AITC 7 and All India Forward Bloc (AIFB) 3
- 29 candidates (11%) are post-graduates.
- 4 candidates (2%) have doctorates.
- 16 candidates have declared their age to be less than 30
- 6 candidates are more than 71 years
- There are 225 male candidates and 28 females
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