Nearly 1/3rd of our MPs, MLAs face criminal cases

Debar Them From Voting In Prez Poll, Demand Activists

New Delhi: That our elected representatives have a fair sprinkling of black sheep is common knowledge. On Thursday, civil society groups decided to act on this knowledge by launching a campaign against tainted MPs and MLAs, demanding that 
they be barred from participating in the presidential election on July 19. 
    The electoral college for the presidential election comprises 4,120 members of legislative assemblies and 776 members of Parliament (both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha). Of these 4,896 MPs and MLAs, at least 1,450, or 31%, have declared criminal cases pending against them in sworn affidavits filed with the Election Commission in recent elections. 
    Of these tainted elected representatives, 641 MPs and MLAs have serious criminal cases like rape, murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, robbery and extortion against them, data analyzed by the National Election Watch has revealed. 
    Six legislators have declared rape charges in their affidavits, while 140 have declared murder charges, more than 350 have attempt to murder charges against them, 145 have been charged with theft, 90 of kidnapping and 75 have declared dacoity charges. 
    Civil society groups have also written to the UPA's presidential candidate, former finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, to declare his assets and submit an affidavit to show that he has no criminal or any other cases pending against him. 146 of 287 Maha MLAs have criminal cases A Lok Sabha MP from Jharkhand has at least 35 criminal cases against him while there are many who have more than a dozen cases. In UP, 189 of the 403 MLAs declared criminal cases at the time of submission of their affidavits to the EC, followed by Maharashtra with 146 out of 287 MLAs and Bihar with 139 out of 241 MLAs. In terms of percentage of tainted votes, Jharkhand has the highest with 74%, followed by Bihar with 58% and Maharashtra with 51%. About 2,322 MPs and MLAs or 48% are crorepatis as per their affidavits. Among state assemblies, UP has maximum crorepatis followed by Maharashtra and Andhra.