The Association for Democratic Reforms has released a report on the basis of which its affiliated state body known as 'Uttarakhand Election Watch (UEW)', a collection of several local NGOs including the RTI Club Uttarakhand, is educating voters across the state by holding awareness camps ahead of the assembly elections.

Notably, the ADR report has found that 23% of state MLAs are school passouts who have studied between class 8 to 12.

“We are holding voters’ awareness campaigns across the state. Currently, we have completed our three weeks long campaign in the 10 hill districts. In the coming days, we will hold such camps in three plain districts. We've appealed to the voters to cast their vote on the basis of the candidate and not on party lines. Also, we have tried to make them aware of their state assembly by making them more informed through data,” said Manoj Dhyani, coordinator of UEW.

The report, which is an updated version of the earlier ADR report on Uttarakhand, since five assembly seats are currently vacant, reveals that 15 MLAs in the current assembly have an educational qualification between class 8 and 12 while 49 MLAs are either graduate or above. Currently, only six MLAs are women."

This data reveals serious concerns because the MLAs are essentially lawmakers," added Dhyani.As far as crime records of lawmakers are concerned, 20 MLAs have declared "criminal" cases against them while 14 MLAs have "serious criminal" cases in their name. Two MLAs have cases related to "murder".

The report further reveals that 46 out of 65 sitting MLAs are "crorepatis". Notably, minister Satpal Maharaj is the richest lawmaker among them.