Parties skipped disclosing details of 191 candidates with criminal cases in 2026 polls: Study

Major political parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress and Aam Aadmi Party, failed to explain why they selected 191 candidates with criminal cases for the 2026 Assembly elections as mandated by the Supreme Court, non-governmental organisation Association for Democratic Reforms said in a study on Thursday.

The candidates contested in elections in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Puducherry.

Under the Supreme Court’s rules, parties have to publish Form C7, explaining why they chose candidates with pending criminal cases over candidates without criminal backgrounds.

The organisation analysed Form C7 disclosures of 3,539 candidates fielded by 51 major political parties across the five states and one Union territory.

Of the 1,405 candidates who had declared criminal cases in their election affidavits, parties published Form C7 disclosures for 1,214, or 86%.

Tamil Nadu had the highest number of missing disclosures. Of the 473 candidates with criminal cases, parties published disclosures for 401.

West Bengal had 55 missing disclosures among 559 candidates, while Kerala had 27 missing out of 268.

Assam had 10 missing disclosures among 66 candidates.

Puducherry had the highest share of missing disclosures, with 27 of 39 candidates not having a Form C7 disclosure.

The BJP did not publish disclosures for eight of its 302 candidates with criminal cases. The Congress did not publish them for 13...

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