- As many as 40 newly-elected MLAs in the 182-member Gujarat Assembly have criminal cases pending against them as per their election affidavits
- 151 of 182 mlas elected to assembly in 2022 polls ‘crorepatis’, Says ADR-GEW Study
- Six winning candidates are PhDs, 19 are post-graduates, 24 are graduates, six are diploma holders, 86 have studied between Class V to XII, while seven have declared themselves just as “literate”.
NE NEWS SERVICE
AHMEDABAD, DEC 11
Despite the Apex Court directive, political parties of all hues have given tickets to some candidates with criminal records as winnability is the only criteria in the game of power play in Gujarat.
With an avowed aim to cleanse the politics of criminalization, the Supreme Court had in August, 2021 directed the political parties to upload on their websites and social media platforms the details of pending criminal cases against their candidates and the reasons for selecting them as also for not giving ticket to those without criminal antecedents.
The Election Commission of India has also been complying with the apex court’s directive in order to save the democracy from the hands of vested interests with criminal records.
But the bitter truth is that nearly 40 newly-elected MLAs in the 182-member Gujarat Assembly have criminal cases pending against them as per their election affidavits, according to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and the Gujarat Election Watch.
Of these 40 MLAs, 29 members (16 percent of a total 182) are facing serious criminal cases, such as the attempt to murder and rape, the ADR analysis showed. Among the 29 members, 20 belong to BJP, four to Congress, two are from Aam Aadmi Party, two are Independents, and one is from Samajwadi Party.
The ADR study shows 26 (17 percent) of the 156 MLAs of BJP, 9 (53 percent) of 17 MLAs of Congress, two of five MLAs of AAP (40 percent), two (68 percent) of three Independents and lone Samajwadi Party candidate- Kandhal Jadeja- have declared criminal cases pending against them.
ADR works for electoral reforms and prepares such reports after analysing affidavits of all 182 newly-elected MLAs.
The study said the number of MLAs facing criminal cases decreased compared to 2017 when 47 elected members were found to be facing such cases.
151 MLAs elected to assembly in 2022 polls ‘crorepatis’: Study
A total of 151, or 83 percent, of the 182 MLAs elected in the recent Assembly polls in Gujarat are ‘crorepatis’ (worth over Rs 1 crore), up from 141 in the 2017 polls, as per a study conducted by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Gujarat Election Watch.
The study showed the ruling BJP has 132 crorepati MLAs, followed by 14 of the Congress, all three Independents, and one each of the Aam Aadmi Party and the Samajwadi Party.
The BJP won the seventh straight term in Gujarat by winning a record 156 seats in the 182-member House.
Of these 151 ‘crorepati’ legislators, 73 have assets of more than Rs 5 crore and 73 have assets in the Rs 2 crore to Rs 5 crore range.
The average assets per winning candidate in Gujarat now stands at Rs 16.41 crore, almost two times the figure for 2017, which was Rs 8.46 crore.
The richest legislators are BJP’s Mansa MLA JS Patel (Rs 661 crore), Siddhpur MLA Balvantsinh Rajput (Rs 372 crore), also of BJP, and BJP’s Rajkot South MLA Ramesh Tilala (Rs 175 crore), the study showed.
The study by ADR, which works for electoral reforms and prepares such reports after analysing the self-sworn affidavits of legislators, stated that 74 MLAs were re-elected and their assets had grown by an average of Rs 2.61 crore, which is a rise of 40 per cent when compared to 2017.
Assets of BJP MLA Babubhai Patel grew from Rs 32.52 crore in 2017 to 61.47 crore in 2022, an increase of nearly Rs 28 crore, while that of BJP MLA Harsh Sanghavi grew from Rs 2.12 crore in 2017 to Rs 17 crore in 2022, an increase of Rs 15 crore.
The third spot on the list of assets’ rise was taken by BJP MLA Jagdish Vishwakarma, who saw a growth of Rs 14 crore in five years from Rs 14.75 crore to Rs 29.06 crore.
The study shows six winning candidates are Ph.Ds, 19 are post-graduates, 24 are graduates, six are diploma holders, 86 have studied between Class V to XII, while seven have declared themselves just as “literate”.
On the age front, two MLAs are 29 years old, while two are 75 years old.
