Delhi Assembly / 20% Delhi candidates have criminal cases, 36% are crorepatis: ADR report

This year’s Delhi assembly election will see the highest share of candidates with declared criminal cases in over a decade, according to figures by election watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms based on analysis of affidavits filed by the candidates with the Election Commission of India. Twenty of these candidates have been convicted in at least one case.

The election will also see the highest share of crorepatis, higher-educated, women and older candidates in over a decade.

Of the 672 candidates contesting the election, nearly 20% have a criminal case against them. This is the highest share of such candidates at least since the 2008 assembly elections, when the figure was nearly 14%, and has since been increasing in every consecutive election.

This is in harmony with the nationwide trend of increasing criminalisation in politics—in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the share of candidates with criminal cases was the highest in a decade.

Not all candidates have cases of a serious nature against them. But the share of candidates with serious criminal cases has also been growing over time. This year, more than 15% of candidates have criminal cases of serious nature against them, also the highest since 2008. 

These include cases such as those related to murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, rape and other crimes against women. This year, 32 candidates have cases related to crimes against women, one of them for rape, while four candidates have cases related to attempt to murder. Eight candidates have a case related to hate speech.

The overall figure of 20% of candidates having criminal cases against them hides the fact that big political parties have a larger share of such candidates. 60%candidates of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have self-declared criminal cases against them. This figure is nearly 39% for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and 27% for the Congress.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has the highest number of criminal cases, 13.

The AAP said the criminal cases against its candidates, including Kejriwal, are all an outcome of the political vendetta by the Centre. “It is not hidden from the people of Delhi the Centre has been after the AAP ever since it came to power in 2015. They slapped cases after cases against Kejriwal, other ministers like Satyendar Jain and Kailash Gahlot, and many more AAP MLAs. They even raided Kejriwal’s home. Each attempt has miserably failed as no case could last in the court of law,” said AAP Delhi unit convener Gopal Rai.

Of all the candidates contesting the election, 36% are crorepatis, the highest in four assembly elections. This figure is higher for the three big parties -- 83% candidates of the Congress, 73% of AAP and 70% of the BJP are crorepatis.

Four wealthiest candidates are from AAP. Dharampal Lakra, the AAP candidate from Mundka constituency, is an outlier with ₹292 crore worth of assets, nearly four times more than the total assets of the second wealthiest candidate Pramila Tokas, the AAP candidate from RK Puram constituency, who owns assets worth ₹81 crore.

The election this year also has the highest share of women candidates (11.8%) since 2008.Fifteen percent of the Congress candidates are women compared to 13% of AAP and 9% of the BJP.

The election will also see a slightly smaller share of younger candidates compared to the previous three elections.

This year only 8.5% of candidates are up to 30 years old while 27.5% of candidates are between 31 and 40 years old. This is the lowest since 2008. On the contrary, there is a higher share of candidates who are more than 50 years old.

The share of higher-educated candidates has increased. Forty-five per cent candidates contesting thiselection are at least graduates. This figure was 40% in 2015, 36% in 2013 and 32% in 2008. The share of literate but uneducated candidates has decreased in this period.

“We gave maximum seats to women and candidates from the Sikh communities unlike other parties. Besides, AAP and BJP have the highest number of candidates with criminal cases. In the Congress, the candidates who may have cases against them are mostly political rather than being criminal,” said Delhi Congress chief Subhash Chopra.

Former Delhi BJP chief Vijay Goel said, “As far as representation to women is concerned, we have given an almost equal number of tickets as other political parties have. We might have given one or two tickets less.”