Bengal: Six candidates in two LS seats have serious criminal cases against them

Out of the 18 candidates who were contesting in West Bengal's Coochbehar and Alipurduar Lok Sabha constituencies, where polling will be held in the first phase on April 11, six have declared criminal cases against them, a survey report said Friday. The six candidates two of the BJP, one each of Kamtapur Peoples Party (United), AIFB, SUCI(C) and one Independent were found to have serious criminal cases against them, the West Bengal Survey Report 2018 which was released Friday said.

The survey is the third part of the survey conducted by West Bengal Election Watch (WBEW) together with the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) on 'Governance issues and Voting Behaviour 2018'. WBEW is a civil society process, linked with NGOs ADR, New Delhi and the National Election Watch India. Only one candidate Paresh Chandra Adhikary of the TMC from Coochbehar constituency has declared assets of more than Rs four crore, while three candidates have not declared their PAN details and two out of the 18 candidates have not declared their source of income.

Only eight candidates have given their ITR details for a period of five years, it stated. Only two candidates are women. On the educational details of the candidates contesting in the two seats the survey found that only six have qualification between standards eight and 12, while 12 candidates are graduate or have more educational qualification, the survey added.

It said that out of the 18 candidates, 13 fall in the 31-50 years age group, while five candidates were aged between 51 to 70 years. WBEW is a civil society process, linked with NGOs ADR, New Delhi and the National Election Watch India. The survey report has a dedicated chapter for West Bengal and covers 42 Lok Sabha constituencies and approximately 21000 voters as respondents. It was conducted between October-December 2018 covered 534 parliamentary constituencies and more than 2.37 lakh voters. 

(With inputs from agencies.)