Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) today, in its report, said major political parties in Odisha have given tickets from 26 % to 80 % candidates who have declared criminal cases against themselves in phase II Assembly election. This was a violation of Supreme court directive, said the ADR report.
The Supreme Court in its directions had specifically instructed political parties to give reasons for such selection and why other individuals without criminal antecedents could not be selected as candidates. As per these mandatory guidelines, the reasons for such selection has to be with reference to qualifications, achievements and merit of the candidate concerned. But parties showed baseless reasons while giving tickets to their nominees having serious criminal antecedents, ADR stated in its report.
In the second phase polls in Odisha, 14 out of 35 constituencies are red alert constituencies which means three or more candidates have criminal cases against themselves.
A total 265 candidates are in the fray in the Odisha Assembly Elections Phase II in 35 constituencies. As per their self-sworn affidavits, 87 (33%) candidates out of 265 have declared criminal cases against themselves.
As many as 70(26%) nominees have declared serious criminal cases against themselves while five are facing murder charges.
As many as 11 candidates are allegedly involved in crime against women.
Among the major parties, 20(57%) out of 35 candidates from BJP, 12(36%) out of 33 candidates from Congress, 8 (23%) out of 35 from BJD and 2(20%) out of 10 from AAP have declared serious criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits.
