31 per cent of the sitting members of Rajya Sabha have criminal cases registered against them while the average assets of the members of the Upper House are Rs 79.54 crore. This information was revealed in a recent report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR)-National Election Watch, an organization working towards electoral reform. ADR and National Election Watch have prepared this report after reviewing the criminal cases registered against 226 of the present 233 Rajya Sabha members and their financial and other related information. At present one seat is vacant in Rajya Sabha. The information of two MPs could not be reviewed as their affidavits were not available and four Rajya Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir are still undefined.
According to the report, 197 of the 226 members of Rajya Sabha, or 87 percent, are crorepatis and the average assets of Rajya Sabha members are Rs 79.54 crore. According to this, 71 or 31 percent of the 226 members have declared criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits while 37 or 16 percent have confirmed to have serious criminal cases. According to the report released, two members of the Rajya Sabha have declared cases of murder under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, while there are four members against whom a case of attempt to murder is registered. The report said that four MPs have declared cases of crime against women. One of them is Congress’s KC Venugopal from Rajasthan, who has declared a rape case (IPC Section 376) in his affidavit.
Understand the maths included in the report
According to the report, BJP has 20 out of 85 i.e. 24 percent, Congress 12 out of 31 i.e. 39 percent, Trinamool Congress has three out of 13 i.e. 23 percent, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has five out of six i.e. 83 percent, Marxist Communist Party (CPI-M) has four out of five i.e. 80 per cent, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) three out of 10 i.e. 30 per cent, YSR Congress has three out of nine i.e. 33 per cent and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has two out of four That is, 50 percent have declared criminal cases registered in their affidavits.
The report said that BJP has 11 out of 85 i.e. 11 per cent, Congress has eight out of 31 i.e. 26 per cent, Trinamool Congress has one in 13 i.e. eight per cent, RJD has three out of six i.e. 50 per cent, CPI(M) five Two out of 40 per cent, one in 10 of AAP (ie 10 per cent), three out of nine (33 per cent) of YSR Congress and one in four (25 per cent) of NCP have mentioned serious criminal cases registered against them in their affidavits.
Giving state-wise figures, the report said that in the Rajya Sabha, seven out of 31 in Uttar Pradesh i.e. 23 per cent, Maharashtra 12 out of 19 i.e. 63 per cent, Tamil Nadu out of 18 i.e. 33 per cent, West Bengal three out of 16 i.e. 19 per cent, six out of nine in Kerala i.e. 67 per cent and Bihar out of 16 i.e. 63 per cent have declared criminal cases against themselves in their respective affidavits.
