Telangana assembly elections 2018: Don't vote candidates from criminal background: Telangana Election Watch

 Telangana Election Watch members gave a call to the voters not to elect the candidates who have cases against them in the Assembly elections. The members Justice Reddappareddy, M Padmanabha Reddy, Dr Rao Chelikani and others alleged that political parties for their vested interests and for winning more seats gave more tickets to the criminal background candidates. They said 49.7 percent of candidates were contesting the elections by having  criminal cases. 

Addressing a PC in their office here at Lakdikapul, Justice Reddappareddy said if the voters elect the candidates from criminal background then how sincerely will they make laws against corruption and criminals in the Assembly.

M Padmanabha Reddy said that they have made analysis on criminal background of more than  1100 candidates contesting in 119 assembly constituencies. They found that from the four main contesting parties namely TRS, Mahakutami, BJP and MIM in 119 constituencies 181 candidates have criminal cases against them. In TRS(57), Mahakutami(Congress 66, TDP 9 and TJS 2), BJP (40) and MIM(7) contesting candidates have criminal cases against them.

The cases include rastharokos(25%), routine cases(60 to 70%) and serious cases(15 to 20%). Serious cases include forgery, fake passport and human trafficking cases.

Dr Rao Chelikani said political leaders were taking criminal cases against them as Medals and were not trying to come out from the cases.

Telangana Election Watch is an organisation of 30 civil society organisations which is working on twin objectives of voter awareness and watch on code violations.