HYDERABAD: Even as political parties declare their intentions to root out crime and injustice during the GHMC poll campaign, an interesting fact has come to light. Forty nine candidates belonging to four major political parties -- the TRS, BJP, Congress and AIMIM -- have criminal records. A total of 96 cases are registered against them.BJP candidates top the list with 17 criminal records followed by TRS (13), Congress (12) and MIM (7).
Six of these candidates include women. In 41 wards out of the total of 150, candidates have criminal records. In Malkajgiri ward, all the contesting candidates from main parties have criminal records. Preetham Kumar Reddy of BJP contesting from KPHB Colony ward tops the list with nine criminal cases followed by Md Mustafa Ali of MIM, Shah Ali Banda ward with seven cases. Akula Rupa of TRS from Monda Market ward and T Srinivas Reddy of BJP from Mailardevpally ward have five cases registered against them.
However, the situation is somewhat better this time compared to 2016, when 72 candidates with criminal cases contested. This a good sign of decriminalisation of politics, according to the Forum for Good Governance (FGG) secretary M Padmanabha Reddy. For efficient functioning of GHMC, voters have to elect honest and clean corporators. If the voters don’t like any of the contesting candidates, they can opt for NOTA, Reddy says.