Arjun Singh, BJP-nominated candidate in Barrackpore Lok Sabha (LS) constituency is the third among the country’s top five contestants with maximum criminal cases.

The BJP candidate Arjun has 93 criminal cases declared by himself while filing affidavit papers to the Election Commission of India (ECI).

The first two ranks are occupied also by BJP candidates K Surendran and Dr K S Radhakrishnan, contesting elections in Wayanad and Ernakulam constituencies respectively in Kerala. Mr Surendran has 243 criminal cases while for Mr Radhakrishnan, it is 211.

Two Congress candidates Adv Dean Kuriacose and Athram Suguna contesting from Idukki in Kerala and Adilabad (ST) in Telangana hold fourth and fifth positions with 88 and 49 criminal cases respectively.

The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW) while analysing affidavits of 8,337 out of 8,360 candidates contesting general elections with tickets of different national parties, state-level parties, unrecognised parties and Independents have prepared the list of the top five contestants with maximum criminal cases.

“It’s mandatory for political parties and candidates with criminal antecedents to publish the declaration at least on three different dates from the date following the last date of withdrawal of candidatures and up to two days before the commencement of poll. The contents of the declaration should be published with a font size of 12 in newspapers. The declaration should be made through a format provided by the national poll panel,” said Dr Ujjaini Halim, state co-ordinator of the ADR and West Bengal chapter of NEW.

The ADR along with NEW in its analysis also revealed that 1,191 out of 8,337 candidates contesting LS election this time have declared serious criminal cases (SCC) like rape, murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, crimes against women against themselves. Around 14 per cent of the total 8,337 candidates have SCC this general election while in the previous 2019 polls 13 per cent of the total contestants had these criminal charges.

There are 288 constituencies (53 per cent of total 543 seats) have been identified as red alert seats because three or more than three contestants in every seat have antecedents of criminal cases as per their affidavits filed to the ECI, the analysis revealed.

“It seems that the directions of the Supreme Court doesn’t have any effect on the political parties in selection of candidates in the LS elections 2024 as they have again followed their old practice of giving tickets to around 20 per cent candidates with criminal cases,” Dr Halim felt.

The apex court in its directions, dated 13 February, 2020 had specifically instructed political parties to give reasons for such selection and why other individuals without any criminal background could not be selected as contestants. But political parties do not usually follow the directives of the apex court. During the Assembly election in five states in 2023, political parties gave unfounded and baseless reasons like popularity of candidates as social workers ignoring criminal background which they (parties) claim that criminal cases given by the party in power in respective states are politically motivated.