Going by their own declarations at the time of elections (data from the website empoweringindia.org), 893 of 8,066 candidates (about 11%) in the 2009 general elections had criminal charges against them. However, these 893 candidates accounted for over 21% of all votes polled, indicating a higher “success rate” than the general pool of candidates.

While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) put up 94 candidates with criminal charges against them, the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) followed closely behind with 86 and 84 candidates, respectively. However, each of these parties put up a total of over 400 candidates in those elections, so in percentage terms they do not stand out.

Among parties that put up candidates in more than 20 constituencies, the party with the highest proportion of candidates with criminal charges was the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), a third of whose candidates had criminal charges against them. Following closely behind were the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist).

Table 1 lists the chief offenders with respect to fielding candidates with criminal charges against them.

Interestingly, only 6% of all independent candidates had criminal charges against them.

In Chandigarh, and Himachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Manipur, no candidates had criminal charges.

At the other end of the spectrum, three out of five candidates in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and five out of 11 candidates in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands had criminal charges. Among large states, 25% of all candidates in Jharkhand had criminal charges, followed by Bihar with 22%.

Nearly half the votes in Jharkhand went to candidates with criminal charges, with the number being 37% in Bihar. Excluding a handful of small ones, in all states the vote share of candidates with criminal charges was more than the percentage of candidates with criminal charges.

State-wise numbers can be seen in Table 2.