Over half of Assam’s candidates haven’t cleared class 12

IANS NEW DELHI, APRIL 1 More than half of the candidates contesting first phase of Assam assembly elections have studied only up to class 12th, a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) said. According to an analysis of the self-sworn affidavits, of all the 539 candidates contesting in the first phase of the poll, 301 or 56 percent candidates have declared their education qualification to be between 5th pass and 12th Pass. Around 41 percent candidates have declared having an educational qualification of graduation or above. Nine of the candidates have revealed being just literate, and one is illiterate. Merely eight percent (43) candidates are women. The first phase of Assam assembly elections will be held on April 4 and phase-2 on April 11.