21% of the outgoing legislators in the five States going to polls have admitted to the same

An analysis of affidavits of candidates fielded during the 2008 Assembly elections in Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram has brought out shocking patterns about criminalisation of the political class.

As many as 128 out of 607 (21 per cent) of the outgoing MLAs in the five States going to polls next month self-declared pending criminal cases against them. Forty-seven of them had declared serious criminal cases against themselves.

Among the five State, Delhi with 43 per cent Delhi such MLAs has the maximum percentage of legislators with declared criminal cases against them followed by Madhya Pradesh which has 25 per cent, said the analysis released by National Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms, two NGOs working for transparency in governance.

While releasing the analysis of the self-affidavits by the contesting candidates in the 2008 Assembly elections on Monday, NEW and ADR demanded that in the upcoming elections the political parties should field clean candidates.

When it comes to MLAs with serious criminal cases registered against them, Madhya Pradesh tops the list among the five States at 11 per cent. It is followed by Delhi and Chhattisgarh both of which have 9 per cent MLAs with serious criminal charges registered against them. With 7 per cent Mizoram among these States has the lowest percentage of MLAs with criminal cases.

During the 2008 Assembly elections, the Congress had fielded 30 per cent tainted candidates in Delhi and 31 per cent in Madhya Pradesh, said the NEW and ADR analysis.

BJP on the other hand had given tickets to 35 per cent candidates with criminal cases in Delhi while 22 per cent tainted candidates were given tickets by the party in the 2008 Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections.

Thirty-eight per cent of Congress MLAs and 46 per cent of BJP MLAs in Delhi have criminal cases registered against them. In Madhya Pradesh, 34 per cent of the Congress MLAs and 20 per cent of the ruling party MLAs have declared criminal cases.

When it comes to the assets of the lawmakers in the five States, 43 per cent or 264 out of 607 MLAs whose affidavits were analysed by the NEW and ADR, were found to worth a ‘crore’ rupees. Delhi has the highest -- 69 per cent – ‘crorepati’ MLAs followed by Rajasthan with 46 per cent such MLAs and Madhya Pradesh with 38 per cent.

On the gender profiling, the analysis said only 11 per cent of the MLAs out of 630 MLAs from the five State Assemblies were women. With 14 per cent of its MLAs as women Rajasthan topped the list while Mizoram Assembly had no women representation. Delhi only had 4 per cent women MLAs.