Ahead of the Punjab assembly elections, the major news is coming. According to reports, in the upcoming state assembly elections, Punjab polls will have at least 315 candidates who have been involved in criminal cases. This is more than three times the number in the 2017 assembly election, said the reports.
Out of 1,304 candidates, 1,276 candidates who are contesting in Punjab assembly elections have self-sworn affidavits, analysed by the Punjab Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). However, the remaining 28 candidates have not been analysed as their affidavits were either badly scanned or complete affidavits were not uploaded on the ECI website.
A report released on Friday stated “Of the 1,276 candidates analysed, 315 (25%) candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves. In the 2017 Punjab Assembly Elections, of the 1,145 candidates analysed, 100 (9%) had declared criminal cases against themselves."
Also, 218 candidates have declared serious criminal cases against themselves, in 2022 assembly polls.
Meanwhile, the elections will be held to elect 117 members of the Legislative Assembly in Punjab. This year the main competition will be between two ruling parties Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The Punjab election was going to be held on a single-phase on February 14 but now it changed to 20th February.