In Tamil Nadu and West Bengal polls, money rules, crime follows

The 2026 Tamil Nadu and West Bengal Phase I Assembly slates in numbers.

Two hundred and one of 386 Assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal (Phase I) have three or more candidates with a criminal case on record.

Nine in 10 candidates fielded by Tamil Nadu's two biggest alliances are crorepatis. And almost two in three of the Bharatiya Janata Party's 152 candidates in West Bengal (Phase I) face serious criminal cases.

The numbers raise a familiar question: do Indian voters get the candidates they want, or the candidates the parties can afford to field?

The Association for Democratic Reforms analysed 5,467 candidate affidavits filed with the Election Commission of India for Tamil Nadu and Bengal's first phase. Of them, 1,290 candidates declared assets of Rs 1 crore or more; 1,067 had a criminal case against them.

In Tamil Nadu, 135 of 234 seats qualify as "Red Alert", the ADR's term for a constituency where three or more candidates have criminal cases. In Bengal's Phase I, 66 of 152 seats do.

The AIADMK-led front (94 per cent) and the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance (93 per cent) are nearly indistinguishable when it comes to candidates declaring assets of Rs 1 crore or more. Actor Vijay's Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam, contesting its first Assembly election, ranks third at 68 per cent.

In West Bengal's first phase, the Trinamool Congress-led alliance’s slate is 72 per cent crorepati; the BJP and the Indian National Congress — both running alone — are 47 and 33 per cent, respectively.

The build

The money pattern is consistent across both states. In Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK-led alliance fielded 221 candidates whose average declared asset was Rs 44.2 crore. The DMK-led SPA averaged Rs 20.4 crore. In contrast, the 2,193 independent candidates average Rs 50 lakh.

Tamil Nadu's mean asset figure is inflated by one filing: a candidate in Lalgudi declared Rs 5,863 crore, more than the next nine richest Tamil Nadu candidates combined.

The median, which is insensitive to outliers, is Rs 7.4 crore for the AIADMK-led alliance and Rs 7.1 crore for the SPA — still high by any standard, and the two alliances are within Rs 30 lakh of each other.

In criminal cases, the West Bengal divergence is sharper. The ADR's serious-criminal category (IPC and BNS sections covering murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, rape, and non-bailable offences carrying a five-year-plus maximum penalty) catches 96 of the BJP's 152 Phase I candidates. That is 63 per cent. The Trinamool Congress and the Left Front-led alliances are clustered near 32 and 37 per cent. The Congress is at 22 per cent.

In Tamil Nadu, the state-wide serious-criminal rate is 10 per cent, but the two biggest alliances run well above it — 35 per cent for the AIADMK-led front and 18 per cent for the SPA. Actor Vijay's TVK is at 19 per cent.

On gender, both states field almost the same share of women candidates. Of 4,023 candidates in Tamil Nadu, 443 are women: 11 per cent of the slate. Of 1,478 candidates in West Bengal Phase I, 167 are women, or 11.3 per cent.

The exception is Tamil Nadu's Naam Tamilar Katchi. Seeman's party has fielded 116 women across its 234 candidates (49.6 per cent), nearly half its slate. The next-highest alliance, the AYYA+ front, has given 18 per cent of its tickets to women. Neither the AIADMK-led National Democratic Alliance (13.6 per cent) nor the DMK-led SPA (10.7 per cent) come close.

The complication

Three caveats frame the headline. First, the ADR analysis covers only Phase I of West Bengal's two-phase election: 152 of 294 assembly constituencies. The BJP's state-wide criminal-candidate picture may shift as later phases are added.

Second, the Rs 44.2 crore average for the AIADMK-led front is lifted by the single Lalgudi filing. Medians describe the distribution better: roughly Rs 7 crore for both top Tamil Nadu alliances.

Third, the "Red Alert" count is an absolute threshold, not a density measure. Tamil Nadu has more seats in the category partly because its slates are bigger. Many TN constituencies have 20–30 candidates, which makes the three-criminal bar easier to cross. West Bengal's rate is nominally lower, but its criminal-candidate share per candidate (23.4 per cent) is higher than Tamil Nadu's (18.1 per cent).

The stakes

The ADR's analyses of past elections have found that crorepati candidates win at rates five to eight times higher than non-crorepati candidates, and that candidates with declared criminal cases win at roughly twice the rate of clean candidates. Those patterns are associations, not proof of causation.

The same alliances that field the wealthiest slates also have the largest vote shares, the strongest ground networks, and the established incumbency advantages that come with both.

What the data does say clearly: if you live in one of the 234 Tamil Nadu assembly constituencies, your candidate almost certainly declares a net worth of Rs 1 crore or more. If you live in one of the 152 Bengal Phase I seats, there is nearly a one-in-three chance your candidate faces a serious criminal case. And in 201 of the 386 constituencies covered here, your ballot carries at least three names with a criminal case on record.

Nandigram, the Mamata Banerjee-Suvendu Adhikari flashpoint that has defined West Bengal politics since 2021, tops the Phase I list: six of 11 candidates face serious criminal cases, more than half the slate. In Tamil Nadu, the Tirunelveli seat leads with nine of 20 candidates facing criminal charges, the single highest figure in either state.

A law passed in 2003 forces every Indian election candidate to disclose criminal cases and declare assets in an affidavit. That is the only reason this story exists. The affidavit for Lalgudi declares Rs 5,863 crore. The affidavit for Nandigram declares six candidates with serious criminal cases. Both were signed, filed, and made public.

Data source: ECI candidate affidavits for Tamil Nadu (April 23 poll, single phase) and West Bengal Phase I (April 29), cross-checked against the Association for Democratic Reforms' published state-level analyses released between April 7 and April 18.

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