E-Paper
66% of outgoing Bihar MLAs facing criminal cases, finds ADR report
158 of 241 MLAs have declared criminal cases, with 119 of them facing serious charges such as murder and crimes against women
Nearly two-third of all legislators in the outgoing Bihar assembly have declared criminal cases against them, with close to half of all MLAs across various political parties facing serious charges, according to a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a nonprofit organisation, released on Monday.
The report — which is based on the analysis of poll affidavits filed by 241 of the total 243 MLAs (details of the two MLAs were not analysed in the report due to unavailability of their complete affidavits) — said that 158 (66%) sitting legislators in the state assembly have declared criminal cases, of which 119 (49%) are facing serious criminal charges, including murder (16 MLAs), attempt to murder (30 MLAs) and crime against women (eight MLAs).
Among the parties, 53 MLAs each from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), 21 legislators from the chief minister Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United), 14 from the Congress, nine from the CPI (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, two each from CPI (Marxist) and CPI, one each from Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) and AIMIM, as well as two independent legislators have declared criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits, the ADR report said.
Among the MLAs with serious criminal charges against them are 43 from the RJD, 41 from the BJP, 13 from the JD(U), nine from the Congress, and seven from CPI(M-L).
Elections to the 243-member Bihar assembly will be held in two phases on November 6 and 11 while the results will be declared on November 14.
The report also highlights the demographic profile of the outgoing Bihar assembly, noting that 122 MLAs (over 50%) are aged between 51 and 80 years, while 119 MLAs fall in the 25-50 age group. Only 29 legislators (12%) in the Bihar assembly are women.
