A staggering 45 per cent of the newly elected legislators in the elections held across five states have declared criminal cases against them in their self-sworn affidavits, a report by the Association of Democratic Reforms and National Election Watch has revealed. The report, based on an analysis of the self-sworn affidavits furnished by candidates at the time of poll nomination, shows that of the 690 winning candidates across five states of Punjab, Goa, Manipur, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, 312 (45%) have declared criminal cases against themselves. Of them, 219 (32 %) have declared serious criminal cases against themselves, the report says.
Of the 690 seats, the BJP won 356, the Samajwadi Party 111, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) 94, and Congress 55 and rests were bagged by smaller parties. Among the 356 MLAs of the BJP, 134 face criminal cases while 71 of the 111 SP MLAs, 52 of 94 of the AAP and 24 out of 55 of the Congress are facing criminal cases. In Uttar Pradesh, 39 per cent of the winning candidates have serious cases registered against themselves, 23 per cent in Punjab, 33 per cent in Goa, 14 per cent in Uttarakhand and 18 per cent in Manipur.
A whopping 87 per cent or 598 candidates are crorepatis. On the education front, 178 (26%) winning candidates have declared their educational qualification to be between 5th to 12th, while 487 (71%) candidates are graduates or have higher degrees while 15 candidates are diploma holders. As many as nine winners have declared themselves to be just literate and one did not share his educational qualification.
A total of 104 (15%) elected members have declared their age to be between 25 to 40 years while 416 (60%) winning candidates have declared their age to be between 41 to 60 years. There are 168 (24%) winning candidates who have declared their age to be between 61 to 80 years and 2 winning candidates have declared they are more than 80 years old.
Of the 690 winners, 614 are men whereas 76 or just 11 per cent are women, thus indicating lower participation or victory of women candidates.
