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

The BJP has the largest number of candidates against whom criminal cases have been filed for the November 13 bypolls for six Assembly seats in West Bengal. Serious criminal cases are pending against four of the candidates.

While two Trinamool Congress (TMC) candidates are facing serious criminal cases, only one of the Congress nominees features in this list of seven names.

On November 11, a report was published by the Association for Democratic Reforms, a non-profit organization concerned with electoral and political reforms, after analyzing 41 of the 42 bypoll candidates.

According to a BJP insider, the higher percentage of candidates with criminal records being fielded by the party “gives them a bad name”, but it is equally a testimony to “what BJP workers face in Bengal”.

As a counter argument, one can raise the fact that 191 of the 440 candidates fielded by the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls this year had criminal cases declared against them. That is a whopping 43 percent of the total number of candidates of the saffron camp.

“While you cannot give any of these politicians an honest answer, it is true that opposition leaders and workers have suffered persecution in Bengal. It has always been the trend even during the Left rule,” said poll analyst Biswajit Bhattacharya.

“Under the TMC rule, this happened with the opposition CPI(M) until 2019. With the sudden expansion of the BJP in the state, they are now at the receiving end of this treatment,” he alleged.

According to the report, TMC’s Sanat Day, the candidate for the Naihati Assembly poll, is the richest among all the contestants. He has declared assets worth around Rs 5 crore. In fact, the TMC has fielded the richest candidates. The average assets of the six candidates top the list at Rs 1.3 crore. The Congress comes second with nearly Rs 1 crore in average assets of its nominees, while the BJP candidates have average assets worth Rs 84 lakh, according to the report.

Individually, Dey is followed by Ananya Roy Chakraborty, the BJP’s Bankura candidate, with nearly Rs 3 crore in assets; next is Congress’ Paschim Medinipur candidate Shyamal Kumar Ghosh (close to Rs 2 crore). Interestingly, Debajyoti Mazumder, the Left Front-backed CPI(ML)(L) candidate for Naihati and one of Dey’s rivals, owns assets worth Rs 1.69 crore.

Kashikanta Barman, a Kamtapur Peoples Party (United) candidate for the Sita 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 are listed as the poorest candidates in the report.

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