New Delhi: More than 40 per cent of the elected members of 17th Lok Sabha have criminal cases against them, says an analysis by election watch group Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
The ADR conducted an analysis of 539 affidavits filed by the winning candidates in which it was found that 233 (43%) winners have declared criminal cases against themselves. This is higher than 2014 when out of 542 winners 185 (34%) had declared criminal cases against themselves. In fact, in 2009, out of 543 winners analysed during Lok Sabha elections, 162 (30%) had declared criminal cases against themselves. Hence, in 2019 there is an increase of 44% in the number of MPs with declared criminal cases since 2009.
A total of 159 (29%) winners in 2019 have declared serious criminal cases including cases related to rape, murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, crimes against women etc, ADR said. Compared to this, out of 542 winners analysed during 2014 Lok Sabha elections, 112 (21%) winners had declared serious criminal cases against themselves and out of 543 winners analysed during Lok Sabha elections in 2009, 76 (14%) winners had declared serious criminal cases against themselves. There is an increase of 109% in the number of MPs with declared serious criminal cases since 2009.
Interestingly, Congress leader Dean Kuriakose elected from Idukki constituency has declared 204 criminal cases against himself, including cases related to committing culpable homicide, house trespass, robbery, criminal intimidation etc, ADR report said.
At least 10 winners have declared convicted cases against themselves and 11 winners have declared cases related to murder (Indian Penal Code Section 302). There are 30 winners who have declared cases of attempt to murder (IPC Section 307) and 19 who have declared cases related to crimes against women. In fact out these 19 winners, three have declared cases related to rape (IPC Section 376). They are BJP's Saumitra Khan from West Bengal, Congress' Hibi Eden from Kerala and YSRCP's Kuruva Gorantla Madhav from Andhra Pradesh. There are 29 winners who have declared cases related to hate speech.
During the analysis it was found that chances of winning for candidates with declared criminal cases in the Lok Sabha 2019 was 15.a5% whereas for a candidate with a clean background it was 4.7%.
Going by the analysis of party wise winners with criminal cases, there were 116 (39%) out of 301 winners from BJP; 29 (57%) out of 51 winners from Congress, 10 (43%) out of 23 winners from DMK, 9 (41%) out of 22 winners fielded by AITC and 13 (81%) out of 16 winners from JD(U) have declared criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits.
