68% of newly Elected Bihar MLAs have pending Criminal Cases: ADR

68% of the newly elected Bihar MLAs have pending criminal charges, with 51% of them have declared serious cases against themselves, including rape and murder, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

In its analysis of the election affidavits of 241 of the 243 winning candidates, the ADR found that the number of winners with criminal cases had increased from 142 or 58 per cent of the total in 2015 to 163 or 68 per cent in 2020. Winning candidates who had declared serious criminal cases, including murder, kidnapping and crimes against women, also increased to 123 or 51 per cent from 98 or 40 per cent in the 2015 Assembly polls. The affidavits of 2 of the winners were not available on the Election Commission’s site, the ADR said. Seventy-three per cent of the RJD and 64 per cent of the BJP winning candidates had declared cases against themselves.

The Bihar polls were the first general elections to be held after the Apex Court in Feb directed political parties to publish details of why they selected a candidate with criminal antecedents.

Over ₹1 crore assets

The ADR report also found that 81 per cent of the newly elected MLAs had declared assets over ₹1 crore, an increase from 67 per cent of the members elected in 2015. An analysis of the assets of the 96 re-elected MLAs found that their assets had grown by an average of 67 per cent from 2015 to 2020.

The majority of winning candidates (52%) were between the ages of 51 and 80. 26 women were elected to the Assembly. The report also said that 34 per cent of the winning candidates had educational qualifications between Class V and XII and 62 per cent had declared themselves to be graduates or above. 

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