Nearly 31 percent of the candidates fielded by political parties for Wednesday’s third phase poll of the seven-phased Uttar Pradesh state assembly election have criminal cases pending against them.

This was stated in a report of National Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms. There was no political party which had refrained from keeping criminals at bay.

Samajwadi Party has 24 candidates with criminal cases against them out of a total 48 aspirants, the Indian National Congress has 14 out of 48, the Bharatiya Janata Party 13 out of 47, the Bahujan Samaj Party has 12 out of 49, the Janata Dal-United has 6 out of 24, the Bundelkhand Congress has 4 out of 13, the Peace Party has 2 out of 12 and Apna Dal has 1 out of 6 candidates with declared criminal cases.
Of these, 76 candidates have declared criminal cases, 35 have declared serious criminal cases such as murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, robbery, extortion etc. SP has 12, INC has 8, BJP has 5, BSP has 5, Bundelkhand Congress has 3, Peace Party has 1 and JD (U) has 1 such candidate.
Ram Veer Singh who was contesting as a SP nominee from Jasrana constituency tops the list with as as many as 18 criminal cases including eight cases of murder.Close on his heels was yet another SP nominee Rameshwar Singh who was in the fray from

Aliganj constituency, with 27 criminal cases. These included five murder cases. In addition, another SP candidate Hari Om contesting from Sirsaganj constituency had 16 criminal cases including six of murder pending against him.
Of the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party, Manish Yadav Pataray, who is in the fray from Jaswant Nagar has 15 criminal cases including cases of murder.

Even the Congress has not been able to keep criminals away from its list. The party’s nominee Keshav Babu, who is in the fray from Hamirpur, has six criminal cases pending including two of kidnapping. And Peace Party which was busy flaying all other parties for patronizing criminals and the corrupt, has given a ticket to Ashok Kumar Singh from Hamirpur even as there were nine cases including four murder cases pending against him.