PANJIM: Nearly 19 of the 95 candidates
contesting the CCP elections are crorepatis, and this does not take into
consideration the value of their immovable assets. There are five candidates with
serious criminal backgrounds, of which three are in the panel backed by St Cruz
MLA Atanasio Monserrate and one each in the BJP and Congress panels.
Nearly 70 percent of the
candidates have not studied beyond Class XII, while 40 percent are in the age
group of 50 years and above. This is against the tall claims made by the panel
chiefs who had announced they would field educated, young, qualified candidates
for the polls. Nearly 60 percent candidates are male.
This information was
disclosed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), Goa Chapter on
Thursday and the findings are based on affidavits filed by the candidates
before the returning officers.
ADR State coordinator
Bhasker Assoldekar said that nearly 20 percent of the candidates are crorepatis
with income above Rs two to Rs five crore. These include Surendra Furtado and
his wife Ruth, Sheetal Naik, Menino de Cruz, Manoj Patil, Uday Madkaikar, Gaurish
Dhond amongst others.
“Sheetal Naik tops the list
of richest candidates as per the Income Tax returns filed for the financial
year 2014-15,” he said. Naik is BJP candidate from ward No 5. She is wife of
BJP’s Taleigao block president Dattaprasad Naik.
There are three candidates
with low assets, with NCP leader Avinash Bhonsle, contesting on the Congress
panel, having the least income.
ADR has listed six
candidates with criminal backgrounds. These are Dayanand Karapurkar (six
cases), Krishna Shirodkar (six cases), Uday Madkaikar (three cases) from the
Monserrate panel, Congress’s Sandip Vaingankar (five cases) and BJP’s Nelson
Cabral (one case).
“These candidates have
serious criminal cases against them involving cases of corruption, loss to State
exchequer, offence with imprisonment of five years and above and other
charges,” Assoldekar said.
There are 28 candidates who
are graduates and one post graduate. While the list does not highlight any
candidate as uneducated, there is one candidate who has studied up to Class V
and seven who have studied up to Class VIII.
