By IANS,
Agartala : At least eight of the total 19 candidates contesting the two Lok Sabha seats in Tripura were undergraduates while two have criminal cases pending against them, the National Election Watch (NEW) said in a report Monday.
There is just one woman candidate in Tripura that goes to the polls April 23.
“It is a shame for the country with most of the political parties giving tickets to semi-literate candidates,” NEW’s Tripura chapter’s chairman B.B. Senapati said.
Comprising 1,200 NGOs across the country, NEW is a non-partisan civil society effort in creating accountable and transparent governance in India.
The NEW has been publishing state-wise reports about all states, highlighting the backgrounds of the candidates contesting the Lok Sabha polls.
“Analysis of the candidates’ backgrounds revealed that 63 percent of the contesting 19 candidates were above 40 years, while 50 percent candidates were more than 65-years-old,” Senapati told reporters.
According to the NEW report, there was only one ‘crorepati’ (multi-millionaire) out of 19 contestants. The report also said that of the 19 candidates, five were renominated by their parties for the Lok Sabha polls.