ADR analysis finds no legislator with ‘heinous’ criminal charges

The capital’s new legislative assembly has no MLAs charged with ‘heinous’ criminal offences, the Association for Democratic Reforms’ analysis of their electoral affidavits has found.

However, over one out of three MLAs has been charged with other criminal offences, including Delhi’s incoming Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who has 10 charges of rioting, defamation and unlawful assembly against him. This is the lowest number of MLAs charged with criminal offences since 2008, the first election in Delhi for which candidates had to declare criminal offences in their affidavits.

Candidates with criminal charges are still more likely to win election than those without, ADR’s data shows; one out of five candidates with a criminal record won, while less than one out of 10 candidates with a ‘clean’ record won. The new assembly will also have the fewest members with assets over Rs. 1 crore among the last three assemblies. Since December 2013, the assets of the 21 AAP MLAs who were re-elected grew by just 4 per cent.

Yet nearly two of three MLAs have assets of over Rs. 1 crore, and the richest MLA, Parmila Tokas of the AAP from R.K. Puram has over Rs. 87 crore in assets. In all, 11 MLAs including her have assets of more than Rs. 10 crore.

The new House also has more educated MLAs than before; 24 MLAs have not studied past Class XII, while 43 are graduates and above; 47 MLAs are under the age of 50. The number of women MLAs has doubled since 2013, but is still less than 10 per cent of the Assembly’s strength.