According to the most recent study from the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW), 306 (or 40%) of the 763 members of Parliament (MPs) have filed criminal charges against themselves.
The information was derived from affidavits filed by MPs prior to their last elections.
Around 194 (25%) MPs have declared serious criminal cases, including cases related to murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, crimes against women etc.
Kerala (73%) topped the chart of MPs who declared criminal cases in their self-sworn affidavits, followed by Bihar, Maharashtra (57%) and Telangana (50%).
Bihar (50%) has the highest percentage of MPs with serious criminal cases followed by Telangana (9%), Kerala (10%), Maharashtra (34%) and Uttar Pradesh (37%).
Looking at party-wise data, 139 (36%) out of 385 MPs from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 43 (53%) out of 81 MPs from the Congress, 14 (39%) out of 36 MPs from the Trinamool Congress (TMC), 5 (83%) out of 6 MPs from the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), 6 (75%) out of 8 MPs from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M), 3 (27%) out of 11 MPs from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), 13 (42%) out of 31 MPs from YSRCP and 3 (38%) out of 8 MPs from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have declared criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits.
32 MPs have declared instances of “attempt to murder” (IPC Section 307), according to the affidavits filed. 21 seated MPs have identified cases involving crimes against women. 4 of them (MPs) have declared cases involving rape in accordance with IPC Section 376.
The average assets per MP from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha is ₹38.33 crore. The average assets of MPs with declared criminal cases is ₹50.03 crore while that of MPs with no criminal cases is ₹30.50 crore.
Telangana (24 MPs) has the highest average assets of MPs with the average assets worth ₹262.26 crore, followed by Andhra Pradesh (36 MPs) with average assets worth ₹150.76 crore and Punjab (20 MPs) with average assets of ₹88.94 crore.
According to the report, the average assets per MP for 385 BJP MPs is ₹18.31 crore, 81 Congress MPs have average assets of ₹39.12 crore, 36 TMC MPs have average assets worth ₹8.72 crore, 31 YSRCP MPs have average assets worth Rs. 153.76 crore, 16 Telangana Rashtra Samiti (which is now called the Bharat Rashtra Samiti) MPs have average assets worth Rs. 383.51 crore, 8 NCP MPs have average assets worth Rs. 30.11 crore and 11 AAP MPs have average assets of Rs. 119.84 crores.
The Lok Sabha has four open seats, the Rajya Sabha has one open seat, and J&K has four unfilled Rajya Sabha seats. The affidavits of one Lok Sabha MP and three Rajya Sabha MPs were not examined because they were not available.
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Source: HT
