BJP’s Bengal bypoll nominees fare worst in crime record; TMC candidate the richest

The BJP has fielded the highest number of candidates with criminal cases against them for the November 13 bypolls to six assembly seats in West Bengal. Four of the candidates have serious criminal cases against them.
While two Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidates face serious criminal cases, only one of the Congress nominees figures in this list of seven names.
A report published by the Association for Democratic Reforms, a nonprofit working on electoral and political reforms, after analysing 41 of the 42 bypoll candidates, was released on November 11.
According to a BJP insider, while the higher percentage of candidates with criminal records fielded by the party “gives them a bad name”, it is as much a testimony to “what BJP workers face in Bengal”.
As a counter argument, one can bring up that 191 of the 440 candidates the BJP had fielded in the Lok Sabha polls this year had declared criminal cases against them. That is a staggering 43 per cent of the total candidates of the saffron camp.
“While you cannot give any of these politicians a clean chit, it is true that Opposition leaders and workers have faced persecution in Bengal. It has always been the trend, even during the Left rule,” says poll analyst Biswajit Bhattacharya.
“Under TMC rule, this happened with the Opposition CPI(M) till 2019. With the BJP’s sudden expansion in the state, they are now at the receiving end of this treatment,” he claims.
The report says the TMC’s Sanat Day, the candidate for Naihati assembly bypoll, is the richest among all the contestants. He has declared assets worth about Rs 5 crore. In fact, the TMC has fielded the richest candidates. The average assets of its six candidates top the list at Rs 1.3 crore. The Congress comes second with close to Rs 1 crore of average assets of its nominees while the BJP candidates have assets worth Rs 84 lakh on an average, according to the report.
Individually, Dey is followed by Ananya Roy Chakraborty, the BJP’s Bankura candidate, with close to Rs 3 crore worth of assets; next is the Congress’s Paschim Medinipur candidate Shyamal Kumar Ghosh (close to Rs 2 crore). Interestingly, Debajyoti Mazumder, the Left Front-supported CPI (ML) (L) candidate for Naihati and one of Dey’s rivals, owns assets worth Rs 1.69 crore.
Kashikanta Barman, a candidate of the Kamtapur Peoples Party (United) for the Sitai seat; Rafikul Islam, an independent candidate for the Haroa seat; and Rupak Mitra, an independent candidate for the Naihati seat, have total assets of Rs 5,000, Rs 9,200 and Rs 16,775 respectively, and feature in the report as the poorest candidates.
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