HYDERABAD: As many as 181 contesting candidates of the total 365 from mainstream political parties in the State are facing criminal charges. The list includes TRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao, ministers KT Rama Rao, T Harish Rao, Etela Rajender, T Srinivas Yadav to opposition leaders N Uttam Kumar Reddy, K Jana Reddy, J Geetha Reddy, Sabita Indra Reddy, and Akbaruddin Owaisi, Ahmed Pasha Quadri, K Laxman, NVSS Prabhakar and T Raja Singh etc.
An analysis of the candidates fielded by the major parties in the fray for the Telangana State elections has shown that almost 50 per cent of them are facing criminal cases, including the chief minister.
As many as 30 civil society organisations have come under one banner as Telangana Election Watch (TEW) 2018, with twin objectives to create voter awareness and to have watch on code violations and to report such violations to the concerned officials, so that, elections are conducted in a free and fair manner.
The TEW had taken up an analysis of candidates having criminal cases. For this purpose, the affidavits filed by them are taken as basis and analysed by a committee and a report is prepared.
“In our analysis, some candidates are having cases registered during the Telangana agitation, and some have criminal cases and few others have cases of both the types,” said M Padmanabha Reddy on behalf of the group of TEW.
Many cases are pending since last six to seven years. For 119 Assembly seats, there are 365 candidates of above-said parties in the fray.
Of the above, if a number of candidates wins elections, incoming Assembly there will be more than half legislators having cases against them. Political parties gave tickets to winnable candidates irrespective of their criminal record. This is not good for our democracy, he said.
Party wise list of candidates facing criminal cases
Prajakutami tops the list with 77 with (Congress 66, TDP 9 and TJS 2 with 64.7 per cent)
Telangana Rashtra Samithi - 57
(47.8 per cent)
Bharatiya Janata Party- 40
(33.6 per cent)
Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen- 7
(87.5 per cent)
