Delhi Assembly polls: 114 candidates have criminal cases

New Delhi, January 30

As many as 114 candidates contesting Delhi Assembly polls have criminal cases against them, election watchdog ADR said on Friday and noted that 19 out of 70 were ‘red alert’ constituencies which had at least three tainted candidates each.

The Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) in its report, which is an analysis of affidavits of 673 candidates contesting the February 7 polls, pointed out that the BJP has fielded the highest number of 27 candidates with criminal cases followed by AAP and Congress with 21 and 12 such candidates respectively.

It also observed that Tughlakabad constituency has five candidates who have criminal cases against them.

“114 out of 673 candidates (17 per cent) have declared criminal cases against themselves. During the 2013 and 2008 Delhi Assembly elections, the percentage of candidates with criminal cases was 16 and 14 respectively,” Jagdeep Chhokar, founder member of ADR, said.

Out of the 114 candidates, 74 of them have declared serious criminal cases against them including murder, attempt to murder, assault, loss to exchequer and crimes against women.

“Out of the 673 candidates, one candidate has a murder case against him and five candidates have declared cases of attempt to murder. 8 candidates have cases related to crimes against women. However, no candidate has a rape case against him,” he said.

Higher on the ‘red alert’ constituency list are Rajouri Garden and Tilak Nagar with 4 candidates in poll fray having criminal cases against them.

The ‘red alert’ constituencies includes Najafgarh, Babarpur, Ghonda, Nangloi, Dwarka, Adarsh Nagar, Matia Mahal, Shahdara, Chhatarpur, Shalimar bagh, New Delhi, Mundka, Matiala, Okhla, Hari Nagar and RK Puram. — PTI