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Date: 
07.11.2017
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Congress and BJP in Gujarat is not only contesting for the 182 Assembly seats, both are practically neck and neck when it comes to the number of MLAs with criminal cases against them.

Overall, the Gujarat Assembly has 31% of its numbers with criminal cases, of which 13% are of serious nature.

While the BJP leads in terms of absolute numbers, the Congress steals the show in terms of percentage of total MLAs with criminal cases against them.

Statistics released by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) shows that of the total 158 MLAs whose affidavits were analysed, BJP had 30 MLAs with declared criminal cases. This accounted for 27 per cent of the total 112 MLAs of BJP in the state.

For the Congress, 36 per cent of its total MLAs in the assembly had declared criminal cases against them. Against 42 MLAs , 15 had criminal cases against them.

It should be noted that the Gujarat Assembly is made up of 182 MLAs but the statistics released by ADR is based on the analysis of affidavits of 158 MLAs. The rest are either no longer members of the assembly or their affidavits were badly scanned and hence not readable.

Addressing a press conference, Maj Gen Anil Verma, head of the National Election Watch of ADR said overall there hasn't been much improvement in the number of candidates with criminal cases making it to the legislature. "It has only increased. Political parties are not much concerned about criminal cases against their members as long as they win the elections. Most also dismiss the complaints as politically motivated," said Verma.

Between the BJP and the Congress, the former leads in number of MLAs with serious criminal cases against them, both in terms of absolute number and percentage.

The BJP has 15 MLAs with declared serious criminal cases, which is 13% of the total elected members the party has in the assembly.

The Congress has 4 such MLAS, who account for 10%of the total MLAs the party has in the assembly.

Overall, when it comes percentage of number of MLAs with serious criminal offences registered against them, the party that leads the pack is JD (U). It should however be noted that JD (U) has just one MLA in the assembly and he has a serious criminal case registered against him. The NCP which has two MLAs has such a case registered against one of its MLAs

​Know your legislators

23% MLAs with assets worth

Rs 5 crore or more

3% MLAs with assets worth less than Rs 10 lakh

68% crorepati MLAs – of the 158 analysed

82 BJP has highest number of crorepati MLAs

51% MLAs with educational qualification between 5th pass and 12th pass

26% Congress MLAs have not filed income tax returns

14% BJP MLAs have not filed income tax returns

Voter behaviour

  • 73% Voters are against backing corrupt candidates
  • 44.44% Don’t know that they can get criminal record of a candidate
  • 71.81% don’t know that giving gifts to buy vote is illegal
  • 60.48% aware of candidates distributing gifts to voters

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  • Statistics released by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) shows that of the total 158 MLAs whose affidavits were analysed, BJP had 30 MLAs with declared criminal cases. This accounted for 27 per cent of the total 112 MLAs of BJP in the state. The survey said there hasn’t been much improvement in the number.
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