New Delhi/Ropar, May 3
It’s a cocktail of crorepatis and criminals who are contesting 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab. A state with stagnating farm economy and receding industrial base boasts of 49 crorepatis and 19 criminals sweating it out in General Election.

With three candidates each with criminal charges in the fray, the National Election Watch has classified Bathinda, Patiala and Amritsar in Punjab as “red alert constituencies”.

According to national coordinator Anil Bairwal, in all there are 19 candidates out of the total 218 in Punjab who have records of criminal cases against them. “This figure would be about 8.7 per cent of total number who are in the fray. The figure is well below the national average of about 15.5 per cent that the ADR culled based on 6700 affidavits analysed so far from all over India,” he explains.

As pert the list released by the ADR today, Karam Singh Ravinder (IND), Kiranjit Singh (LJP) and Raninder Singh (INC) in Bathinda; Karamjit Singh (IND), Arun Sood (IND) and Deepak Joshi (BSP) in Patiala, and Navjot Singh Sidhu (BJP), Surinder Singh (DCP) and Naresh Singh Bhadauriya (IND) in Amritsar give the three seats the title of “red-alert constituencies”.

“Among the parties, the BJP, LJP and SAD(A) have one candidate each with serious criminal cases against them,” says Bairwal. Simaranjit Singh Mann, SAD(A) candidate from Sangrur, Narian Singh (IND) in Gurdaspur, Rajinder (IND) in Ferozepur, Kumar (IND) in Ludhiana, Ajmer Singh (IND) in Sangrur, Girdhari Lal (LBP) in Ludhiana, Rimple Kumar (IND) in Ferozepur, Rattan Singh Ajnala (SAD) in Khadoor Sahib, Resham Lal Kahlon (IND) in Anandpur Sahib and Gurmeet Singh Ranghreta (PLP) in Faridkot are other candidates with criminal charges against them.

The highest number of cases, as many as eight, are against Simranjot Singh Mann followed by Narian Singh(3), Raninder Singh (3), Karam Singh(2), Kumar(2) and Girdhari Lal(2). Karamjit Singh and Navjot Sidhu are among those who have been convicted.

Apart from this, there are 49 crorepatis in fray, about 22.5 pc of the total 218 candidates. The top three political parties in terms of richest candidates are BJP (17.2 crore), INC (9.6 crore) and SAD (9.1 crore). All 26 candidates belonging to these parties are crorepatis without exception.

The crorepati list is headed by Harsimrat Kaur (SAD) with more than Rs 60 crores total assets, followed by Preneet Kaur (INC) with assets worth Rs 42 crore, Vinod Khanna (BJP) Rs 35 crore, Rana Gurjeet Singh (INC) Rs 34 crore, Swaran Singh (BSP) Rs 17 crore, Raninder Singh (INC) Rs 14 crore, Navjot Sidhu (BJP) Rs 14 crore and Hans Raj Hans (SAD) Rs 10 crore. The top three parties in terms of average liabilities of their candidates are BSP (20.2 lakh), SAD (17.9 lakh) and INC (15.6 lakh) Besides there are 13 women candidates, just about six per cent, and about 58 per cent of the total candidates have not furnished their PAN details.

In Chandigarh no candidates have any criminal charges against them. There are seven crorepatis out of the total 14 candidates in the fray. Amongst them eight are graduate or above and there is just one woman candidate fighting as an Independent.