As the election heat picks up in Bihar, it has been found that a substantial number of candidates in almost all political parties have criminal records in their antecedents. The election commission recently sent a letter to 150 registered parties in Bihar directing them to disclose the reason for giving poll tickets to candidates with criminal records. It is in follow-up to the order given by Supreme Court of India on February 13, 2020 to the political parties to publish the entire history of criminal records of their candidates running for Assembly and Lok Sabha Elections. In its order, the Apex court had asked the political parties to give clear reasons that pushed them to field suspected criminal over decent people.

According to the data released by the state chief electoral officer, as many as 319 out of the 1066 contestants have criminal records. The first phase of three phase election for the 243 member Bihar legislative assembly is going to be held on October 28. It is mandatory for the candidate to file an affidavit also known as Form-26 that shows the information on his/ her  building, asset, liabilities, education qualification as well as the criminal antecedents (all pending cases along with conviction). The main purpose behind introducing Form-26 was to help voters to make informed decision after clearly knowing the criminal background and activity of a candidate. Normatively the move was aimed for transparency to prevent people with questionable background from getting elected to a seat as either a member of parliament or as a member of an assembly.

If one looks at the Gaya district with 10 assembly constituencies, it has the highest number of 49 candidates with criminal backgrounds. It is followed by Bhojpur, where 39 candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves, Rohtas has 37 and Buxar has 23 such candidates. Till now the data of second and third phases are yet to be disclosed. In the second phase 94 constituencies are going to polls on November 3 and 78 seats will be contested in the third phase on November 7. If we take the alliance of JD(U) and BJP,  it is not far behind with as many as 34 of its MLAs having pending criminal cases against them.

Let us have a look into the antecedents of some of the candidates place by various parties in the Bihar polls 2020.

BJP has repeated its sitting MLA Aruna Devi, the wife of the dreaded don Akhilesh Singh, in the Warisaliganj seat of Nawada. Akhilesh Singh is an accused in the July 2004 Nawada massacre in which 10 people were killed at Chakwai village.  Aruna was member of the LJP and the Congress before joining the BJP in 2015. Akhilesh Singh had contested the 2009 Lok Sabha polls as an independent candidate and had declared 27 cases against himself. The cases included 11 charges of attempt to murder, three of extortion and three of murder.

CM aspirant Tejashwi Yadav’s RJD has asked Veena Singh, the wife of Rama Kishore Singh to contest from the Manhar seat in Vaishali district.  Rama Kishore Singh is a former Member of Parliament who had won from the Lok Sabha seat at Vaishali in 2014 on an LJP ticket and is accused of kidnapping. Shockingly Ram Kishore is also accused of kidnapping a child under 10 years, murder and that of receiving stolen property.

Hulas Pandey is LJP’s candidate from Brahmpur seat in Buxar district. Pandey, the state vice president of the party was earlier with the JDU. He carries the charges of murder (4), attempt to murder (3), and extortion, and is the brother of dreaded criminal Sunil Narendra Pandey. (SN Pandey carries multiple charges of murder, dacoity and extortion on his head.)  Sunil Pandey had been arrested earlier for facilitating the escape of a criminal from the civil court at Arrah by using a human bomb, a woman, who died in the bombing.

JDU, which markets itself as the wizard of clean politics, has given ticket to Manorama Devi. She is a sitting MLC from Gaya district. Her late husband Bindeshwari Prasad Yadav was a local muscleman. Rocky Yadav, son of Manorama Devi had shot dead Aditya, a teen studying in Class 12 in May 2016 in Gaya, when Aditya overtook his car. Nitish Kumar had then suspended Manorama from JD(U) . She is now the party’s official candidate from Sherghati in Gaya.

We see that essentially, no party in the Bihar polls is immune from participation by candidates with criminal backgrounds, records, and connections.

The author is a student member of Amity Centre of Happiness.

Editor Opinion, Biswarup Mukhopadhyay has given important inputs for the article.