Gujarat polls: Candidates with dubious past fielded

It is not the crorepatis alone who have been given tickets by the mainstream political parties in the first phase of the upcoming Gujarat Assembly elections. And half of the candidates have never filed I-T returns, while as many as 104 of them have been named in criminal cases.

As many as 240 of the 482 candidates said that they have never filed I-T returns and 103 of them had failed to declare their PAN details. According to data released by the Gujarat Election Watch (GEW), which is the state wing of the National Election Watch, there were 147 crorepatis among the list of candidates released so far. And six of them have not disclosed their PAN details. During the previous Assembly elections held in 2007, crorepatis made up 21 per cent of the total number of candidates in the fray.

The GEW had gone through the affidavits of the 482 out of the 846 candidates who are in the fray during the Phase-I of the polls. And it was found that 104 candidates or 22 per cent had been named in criminal cases. Compared to this, 23 per cent of the candidates for the 2007 Assembly elections had criminal cases filed against them.

Among the candidates with criminal antecedents, 46 have been arraigned in  serious criminal cases like murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping and robbery. The partywise break-up for the 240 candidates who had never filed their I-T returns is: BJP-12, Congress-16, Gujarat Parivarthan Party (GPP)-35, BSP-61 and JD(U)-23. Shockingly, three of the candidates who are the richest among those in the fray have never filed IT returns – BSP’s Parmar Rajabhai Parbatbhai (`40.75 cr),Jadeja Kandhalbhai Sarmanbhai of the NCP (`28.29 cr) and Vithalbhai Hanshrajbhai Radadia of the Congress(`5.62 cr).