PANAJI
Statistics have revealed that candidates contesting the forthcoming election have increased in comparison to the 2012 elections. Out of the 251 candidates, 38 have declared criminal cases against them.
According to numbers gathered and analyzed by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), 15 per cent of the candidates for this year’s elections have declared they have criminal cases against them.
This year, ADR have classified criminal cases in terms of seriousness of the crime classifying it into serious criminal cases including offence for which maximum punishment is of 5 years or more, a non bailable offence, an electoral offence (for e.g. IPC 171E or bribery), offence related to loss to exchequer, offences that are assault, murder, kidnap, rape related, offences that are mentioned in representation of the People’s Act (Section 8), offence under Prevention of Corruption Act and crimes against women.
For the last elections in 2012, 12 candidates had declared serious criminal cases against them. This number increased to 19 this year. Candidates with cases related to crimes against women were two.
Among those that were listed under serious crimes, Vinod Fadke for charges of forgery for purpose of cheating, criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy. Anatasio Monseratte for charges related to voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means, causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty, destroying or moving, etc, a land-mark fixed by public authority. Mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to cause damage to amount of one hundred and rioting with similar charges against his wife Jennifer.
Others in the serious crimes category include Ramesh Tawadkar, Michael Lobo, Vinod Paleyenkar, Vasudev Gaonkar, Govind Gaude, Gilbert Rodrigues, Joseph Sequeira, Prakash Velip, Dilip Parulekar, Jose Silva, Dhaku Madkaikar, Churchill Alemao, Digambar Kamat, Rosario Mariano, Ramakant Borkar and Sunil Kerkar.
In the case of party-wise candidates with criminal cases, 3 (8%) out of 39 candidates from AAP, 6 (17%) out of 36 candidates from Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), 9 (24%) out of 37 candidates from Indian National Congress (INC), 2 (8%) out of 25 candidates from Maharashtrawadi Gomantak, 5 (29%) out of 17 candidates from Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)and 9 (16%) out of 58 Independent candidates have declared criminal cases against them in their affidavits.
Those with serious criminal cases include 6 (16%) out of 37 candidates from INC, 3 (8%) out of 36 candidates from BJP, 2 (8%) out of 25 candidates from Maharahtrawadi Gomantak, 1 (6%) out of 17 candidates from NCP and 4 (7%) out of 58 Independent candidates have declared serious criminal cases against them in their affidavits.
This year, the St Andre constituency was for the first time in the history of Goan elections, put into a red alert constituency for having three candidates with declared criminal cases against them.
