Out of a total of 1,197 candidates with criminal antecedents who contested the recently-held Bihar Assembly elections, 467 were fielded by recognised national and State parties while remaining 730 were either fielded by registered but unrecognised parties or had contested the polls as independents.
According to the Election Commission, a total of 3733 candidates including 371 women were in the fray in the three-phase elections. During the polls, 156 cases were registered against “organisers” of rallies and meetings of various leaders and candidates for violating COVID-19 norms. In 2015 out of 3,450 candidates 1,038(30%) had declared criminal antecedents. There has also been a rise in the number of candidates with serious criminal cases, with 915(25%) declaring such cases this year, as compared to 796 (23%) candidates in 2015.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has the maximum candidates with criminal cases registered against them followed by the BJP. It said, “Out of 56 RJD candidates, 36, which is 64 per cent, candidates have criminal cases against them, followed by the BJP with 29 out of 46 candidates which is 63 per cent.
Cases were registered against organisers as they had sought permission to hold rallies or meetings in which following health guidelines was mandatory, explained an official. Ahead of the three phase elections, the poll panel had made it clear that violation of COVID-19 guidelines during election period would be deemed as a violation of section 144 of the CrPC.
The section of the Criminal Procedure Code allows local authorities to issue orders to prevent and address urgent cases of apprehended danger or nuisance. Certain sections of the National Disaster Management Act and the Epidemic Act were also used.
The local authorities also relied on section 188 of the Indian Penal Code to deal with cases of violation of health guidelines.It deals with disobedience to follow orders issued by an authorised public servant. Bihar assembly elections were the first full-fledged polls to be held amid coronavirus. Over 4 crore of the total over 7 crore voters exercised their franchise.
Following a Supreme Court direction in February this year, the Election Commission had in March asked political parties to justify why they chose candidates with criminal history to contest elections.
Assembly elections in Bihar were the first full-fledged polls where such details of their candidates were made public by parties.