Criminal Candidates

On Shantanu's blog

From : http://www.lead.timesofindia.com/MediaRoom.aspx?URLName=LeadIndia09.aspx?id=58

"We looked at which parties accounted for how many of the 96 MPs whom we could categorise based on the maximum possible sentence. It turned out that the BJP headed the list with 23 followed by the Congress with 17. It is true that the RJD’s seven, the SP’s nine and the BSP’s five constitute a much larger proportion of those parties’ MPs, but what is clear is that these smaller parties have no monopoly on MPs with criminal charges pending against them. What should be more worrying is the fact that all the parties that fielded candidates with criminal charges against them won 494 of the 543 seats in the April-May 2004 elections."

http://ibnlive.in.com//videos/89301/more-criminal-mps-in-14th-ls-than-ever-before.html

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/89082/india-can-india-will-we-wont-vote-for-criminals.html

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/88235/up-outlaws-to-aid-maya-realise-poll-ambitions.html

BSP is perhaps the most criminalised, then BJP, then Congress ? Are there better options ? Any pointers or insights will be very useful !

But BJP says it is a clean party ??
http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/89555/04_2009/devils_jaitley0504_2a/bjp-has-to-follow-the-nda-arun-jaitley.html
Criminal BJP Candidate - http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/video/video.aspx?id=67872

This news brief mentions some other criminal candidates, including from BJP and 'Apna Dal'
http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/89015/a-look-at-some-of-the-tainted-candidates-in-ls-polls.html
It mentions that there are more than 70 contestants with criminal records contesting elections.