State election commission's directives on displaying candidate affidavits at polling booths got National Election Watch and Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) to analyse aspirants rapidly. The results have revealed that Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena have maximum candidates with criminal cases, who are touted to compete at the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and Pimpri-Chichwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) elections in a week's time.

In the PMC area, they have found that 128 candidates declared criminal cases against them. Around 25 of 92 NCP candidates, 24 out of 95 Shiv Sena aspirants, 22 out of 106 BJP contestants, 12 Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) aspirants of the total 82 applicants, 11of the 56 Congress contenders, four of the 41Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) nominees, and three out of 17 All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AMMIM) have criminal cases against them.

In the PCMC limit, the association examined 541candidates out of 774 who are contesting for 128 seats spread across 32 wards that will elect four members from each ward. Almost 19 per cent of BJP candidates, 17 per cent of NCP, 13 per cent of Shiv Sena and four per cent Congress aspirants have criminal cases.

Satish Khot, co-ordinator of Maharashtra Election Watch said, "The rest of the affidavits were not analysed as they were not available or uploaded on the website. We have published facts so that people know their candidates."

Senior leaders of these parties have raised questions on the report's intention. NCP's city unit chief Vandana Chavan called it a "halfdone study". Vinayak Nimhan, Pune city president of Shiv Sena said that most of the cases against these aspirants are related to political agitation. MNS Pune chief Hemant Sambhus said that their party has selected candidates after verification. He, too, said that most of these cases are related to political agitation. "It shows that the aspirants have been fighting for their parties," he said.