In the first assembly election to be held in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370, more than 20 per cent of the candidates in the second phase of elections were involved in criminal cases including those related to attempt to murder, rape and other crimes against women.
The candidates facing criminal charges also include those from prominent political parties: four each from the BJP and PDP, two from the Congress and one from the Nationalist Congress.
According to an analysis of the affidavits of 238 candidates in the second phase by the Jammu and Kashmir Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a total of 49 candidates have criminal cases filed against them.
Among them, 37 people face serious criminal charges, 3 are suspected of attempted murder, 7 face charges of crimes against women, and 1 faces rape charges.
Due to a large number of candidates being involved in criminal cases, eight of the 26 constituencies have been listed as red alert constituencies.
It is worth mentioning that a red alert constituency refers to a constituency where three or more candidates have been criminally charged.
Moreover, the role of money power in elections can be seen from the movable and immovable assets of candidates in the second phase, 55% of whom are multi-millionaires. The average assets of candidates contesting the assembly elections (second phase) are Rs 5.8 crore.
Of the 238 candidates, 24 have assets of Rs 10 crore and above, 36 have assets between Rs 50 crore and Rs 10 crore, 71 have assets between Rs 10 crore and Rs 50 crore, 50 candidates have assets between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 10 crore, and 57 candidates have assets of less than Rs 20 lakh.
Among the major political parties, 100% of the candidates of the Congress, 90% of the candidates of the Nationalist Congress Party, 76% of the candidates of the BJP and 73% of the candidates of the People’s Democratic Party declared assets exceeding Rs 1 crore.
From the party perspective, the average assets of Congress candidates are Rs 29.39 crore, the average assets of BJP candidates are Rs 11.21 crore, the average assets of BJP candidates are Rs 11.07 crore and the average assets of PDP candidates are Rs 52.4 crore.
The top three candidates who declared the highest assets in the second phase were APNI candidate Altaf Bukhari (Rs 165 crore), Congress candidate Tariq Hamid Kala (Rs 148 crore) and NC Party candidate Mushtaq Guru (Rs 94 crore).
Similarly, the three candidates who declared the highest income in the ITR were Kuldeep Raj Dubey of BJP (Rs 22.4 crore), Ashok Kumar Sharma of DPAP (Rs 7.7 crore) and Masood Ahmed, an independent candidate from Poonch Haveli (Rs 7.2 crore).
Masood Ahmed is also among the top three candidates with the highest debt. His debt is Rs 10.26 crore, followed by BJP’s Randhir Singh (Rs 9.30 crore) and APNI’s Zafer Habib Dar (Rs 8.08 crore). Interestingly, Mr. Dar’s total assets are just Rs 27.9 crore, while his debt is as high as Rs 8.08 crore.
Almost half of the candidates had an education level between 5th and 12th grade, and one of them claimed to be illiterate. 114 candidates had a postgraduate degree or above, and another 6 candidates had diplomas. Of all the candidates, 84 were between 25-40 years old, 105 were between 41-60 years old, and 49 were between 61-80 years old.
Contrary to the exaggerated claims of political parties regarding the empowerment of women, there were only 6 (3%) women candidates in the second phase of the parliamentary elections.
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