Over half of the newly-elected MLAs of Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and West Bengal had declared criminal cases against themselves in their election affidavits, the Association for Democratic Reforms said in a report on Wednesday.
The recently-held Assembly elections, which concluded with counting of votes on May 2, led to the election of 822 candidates, of which 808 were analysed by ADR. The remaining candidates were left out due to lack of complete information.
Kerala had the highest number of winning candidates with criminal cases, with 71%, followed by Tamil Nadu (60%), West Bengal (49%), Puducherry (43%) and Assam (27%), the ADR report said.
Tamil Nadu had the highest number of winning candidates with assets over ₹1 crore, with 85% of the MLAs in the category of crorepatis. Puducherry, Assam, Kerala and West Bengal had 83%, 67%, 55% and 54% of winning candidates with assets over ₹1 crore. All the Kerala Congress (M) MLAs were crorepatis, while on the other hand only 26% of the Communist Party of India’s winning candidates declared assets over ₹1 crore.
Sixty-three per cent of the winning candidates said they had graduate or higher degrees, while 35% said their education qualification was between Class V to Class XII. The majority of winning candidates (63%) were between 51 to 80 years old, while 37% were between 25 and 50 years. One candidate declared his age to be above 80 years.
