As many as 186 candidates out of the total 747 in the fray for the second phase polls in 77 Assembly seats due on April 17 are facing criminal charges. Of them, 144 candidates have serious criminal charges against them including murder, rape, kidnapping and crime against women.
Those who have criminal charges against them include 39 candidates of the Congress, 25 of the ruling BJD, 34 of the BJP and nine of the Aam Admi Party (AAP). This was revealed in the report published by the Odisha Election Watch (OEW) and the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) here at a Press conference.
Rabindranath Jarika of Aama Odisha Party from Sukinda ranks number one with highest number of 38 criminal cases slapped against him. Judhistir Samantaray of the Congress and Braja Kishore Pradhan from the Pipili and Talcher constituencies respectively share the second position with 27 criminal cases each pending against them while Sanatan Mahakud, Independent candidate from Champua constituency comes third with 10 cases.
The OEW analysis is based entirely on the information furnished by candidates in their affidavits revealed that murder and attempt to murder cases are pending against 21 candidates while cases related to crimes against women against 20 and cases related to assault or criminal force against woman with intent to outrage her modesty (under Section 345 IPC) are pending against 14 candidates.
Three candidates have declared cases related to the husband or relative of the husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty (IPC Section-498A).The analysis revealed that Satyabrata Panda of the BJP from Ghasipura constituency has declared charges of rape, along with charges related to causing miscarriage without woman’s consent (IPC Section-313), and kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman for marriage (IPC Section-366).
In the red alert constituencies category, there are 32 constituencies that have at least three candidates with declared criminal cases. Baleswar constituency has the maximum number of 7 candidates with criminal cases.
Notably, out of 744 candidates analysed in the report, only 63 (8 per cent) are women.
The report revealed that there are as many as 141 crorepatis, including 43 from the BJD, 43 from the BJD, 34 from the Congress and 17 from BJP.
Former Congress leader and now an Independent candidate in the Champua Assembly constituency in Keonjhar district Sanatan Mahakud is the richest candidate with assets worth Rs69.63 crore followed by Rs65.91 crore of Sunjoy Hans of Aam Odisha Party from Bhubaneswar Ekamra and Rs21.54 crore of lala Manoj Kumar Ray of Congress from Nayagarh.