West Bengal Election 2021 Phase 4: 22% WB candidates have criminal records, 17% crorepati

West Bengal Assembly Election 2021: Voter's queue in the early morning today at the Polling Station No- 37 in Ramachandrapur Primary School of 204- Panskura Purba Assembly Constituency of Purbo Medinipur District to cast their vote. (Representative image: Twitter/@CEOWestBengal)

Campaigning for the high-decibel fourth phase of polling in the West Bengal Assembly election has concluded and 44 constituencies are ready to vote on April 10.

A total 1,15,81,022 voters including 58,82,514 men, 56,98,218 women and 290 members of the third gender, will decide the fate of 373 candidates in 44 Assembly seats spread over Howrah (Part II), South 24 Parganas (Part III), Hooghly (Part II) in south Bengal and in north Bengal's Alipurduar and Cooch Behar.

Among those whose fate will be decided at the hustings are former Bengal Ranji captain Manoj Tiwary, TMC's candidate from Shibpur, state education minister and sitting MLA from Behala Paschim Partha Chatterjee and central minister Babul Supriyo of the BJP who has locked horns with state sports minister Arup Biswas for the Tollygunge seat.

Ratna Chatterjee, wife of former city mayor and fire minister Sovan Chatterjee, who left Mamata Banerjee's TMC to join the BJP for a short period, is facing BJP's actress-turned politician Payel Sarkar in Behala Purbo seat. Former state forest minister, Rajib Banerjee, who moved to the BJP recently is contesting from Domjur while BJP MP and actress Locket Chatterjee is contesting the polls from Chinsurah in Hooghly district.

As the constituencies are ready to cast votes, take a look at contesting candidates based on their criminal cases, financial assets, educational qualifications, and gender representation, published by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

This analysis is based on the self-sworn affidavits of all 372 out of 373 candidates. One Independent candidate namely Bishnu Chowdhuri from Saptagram constituency has not been analysed due to unavailability of complete affidavit.

Criminal cases

Among the 372 candidates analysed, 81 have declared criminal cases against themselves. This means 22 percent of candidates have been charged with criminal cases. Of these, 27 are from Bharatiya Janata Party, 17 from Trinamool Congress, 16 from Communist Party of India (Marxist), two from Congress and one from Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist).

Out of 81 candidates with criminal cases, 65 have declared serious criminal cases against themselves.

As many as 19 candidates have declared cases related to crime against women.

Red Alert Constituencies: Among 44 constituencies going to vote in the fourth phase of West Bengal Assembly polls, 12 are Red alert constituencies. Red alert constituencies are those where three or more contesting candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves.

Crorepati candidates

There are 65 candidates who are crorepati, which means they have declared assets valued at more than Rs one crore. Of these, 34 are from TMC, 18 from BJP and one candidate each from Congress Bahujan Samaj Party and Janata Dal (United).

TMC leaders Ahmed Javed Khan and Manoj Tiwary top the list with declared asset value of over 32 crore (32,33,01,926) and 20 crore (20,33,57,703) respectively. BJP’s Rathin Chakrabarty lists on third position with declared asset value of over 16 crore (16,53,50,396).

Education

A total of 173 candidates have an educational qualification equivalent to graduate or above. This amounts to 47 percent of the legislators.

As many as 186 candidates – 50 percent – have declared their qualification to be between 5th pass and 12th pass. There are five candidates who are diploma holders while six candidates are just literate and two candidates are illiterate.

Age

Among the 372 candidates analysed, 118 have declared their age to be between 25 and 40 years while 193 have declared to be between 41 and 60 years. There are 60 candidates who have declared their age to be between 61 and 80 years. There is one candidate whose age is 89 years.

Gender representation

Of the 372 analysed candidates contesting in 44 constituencies of West Bengal, currently ruled by a woman chief minister, only 13 percent are female. This means, 322 candidates are men while 50 are women.