Varanasi, March 3 : On an average 28 per cent of the candidates contesting Uttar Pradesh assembly polls in phase 7 have declared criminal cases against themselves. Similarly 36 per cent of the candidates are crorepatis. UP Election Watch Association for Democratic Reform has analysed the affidavits of 607 candidates out of 613 contesting in the seventh phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections who are contesting from 54 constituencies, going to polls in the last phase of March 7. According to the report released here on Thursday, out of 607 candidates, 170 or 28 per cent have declared criminal cases against themselves and serious criminal cases are 131 or 22 per cent. The criminal cases declared by the candidates party-wise are 26 out of 45 or 58 per cent of Samajwadi Party, 26 out of 47 of BJP or 44%, 20 out of 52 of BSP or 38%, 20 out of 54 or 37 % of Congress and 47 out of 8 or 17% of AAP Party candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves. In the criminal cases declared by the candidates in the seventh phase, the first place is Pragatisheel Manav Samaj Party Vijay Mishra, who is a candidate from Bhadohi’s Gyanpur assembly seat, against whom 24 cases are registered ,on the second place is Ghazipur district’s Ghazipur Legislative Assembly in the second place is Bahujan Samaj Party’s Raj Kumar Singh Gautam from Ghazipur seat who has 11 cases and third is Ajay Rai from Congress’s Varanasi Pindar assembly constituency, who has 17 cases registered. The ADR report says that out of 607 candidates, 217 or 36 per cent are crorepatis in the seventh phase. Party wise, BJP’s 47 out of 40 or 85 per cent, Samajwadi Party 45 out of 37 or 82%, BSP 52 out of 41 or 79%, Congress 54 out of 22 or 41% and 47 out of 15 or 32 % AAP’s candidates are crorepatis whose declared assets are more than Rs.1 crore. In the first place among the top 3 candidates who declared the maximum assets, are AIMIM candidate Guddu Jamali from Mubarakpur Assembly constituency of Azamgarh district , who has declared his assets of Rs 195 crores while in second place from Pindar assembly seat of Varanasi district Bahujan Samaj Party’s Babulal has assets worth over Rs 44 crores, while on the third place is Piyush Kumar Singh from Nizamabad Assembly seat of Azamgarh district also of Bahujan Samaj Party, who has declared his assets of Rs 34 crores. The average assets of candidates in the seventh phase of Uttar Pradesh elections, 2022, is Rs 2.55 crore. MB SY 1555