The Bharatiya Janata Party, among the recognised political parties, has the highest number of 14 MLAs and MPs who have declared cases related to crime against women, says a report of the Association for Democratic Reforms and the National Election Watch.
As per the report, Shiv Sena stands second with seven and the Trinamool Congress third with six legislators.
In the past five years, recognised parties gave tickets to 29 candidates who had declared cases related to rape for contesting in the Lok Sabha/Rajya Sabha and State Assembly elections while 14 independent candidates with rape allegations contested in the polls.
The non-government bodies analysed 4,852 of the 4,896 election affidavits of the MPs and the MLAs. “Of the 1,581 MPs/MLAs analysed with declared criminal cases, 51 have declared cases related to crimes against women,” said the report.
Among these 51 legislators, 48 are MLAs and three are MPs. In all, 334 candidates — who were analysed — were given tickets by recognised political parties. Over 120 independent candidates, whose affidavits were analysed, with declared cases of crimes against women had contested the elections in the past five years.
Of these candidates, 40 were given tickets by parties for the Lok Sabha/Rajya Sabha elections. “Various recognised parties have given tickets to 294 candidates with cases related to crimes against women for State Assembly elections,” said the report.
In the past five years, 19 independent candidates with such declared cases contested in the Lok Sabha/Rajya elections. Similarly, 103 such independent candidates contested in the State Assembly polls.
Among the States, the report says, Maharashtra has the highest number (12) of such MPs or MLAs, followed by West Bengal with 11 and Odisha with 6 MPs or MLAs. In the past five years, Maharashtra again had the highest number of candidates (65), followed by Bihar with 62 and West Bengal with 52 such candidates who were given tickets by political parties.
