40% of Newly Elected MLAs in Maharashtra Have Serious Criminal Cases Against Them, 93% are Crorepatis

New Delhi: Nearly 40 per cent or as many as 113 MLAs elected to the legislative assembly of Maharashtra have declared serious criminal cases against them, an analysis of self-sworn affidavits filed by the legislators at the time of nomination has revealed.

The analysis by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which studied affidavits of 285 of the 288 MLAs, showed that overall at least 176 MLAs have declared criminal cases against them, an increase of five percentage points compared to the outgoing assembly. Affidavits of the remaining MLAs were not analysed due to the unavailability of complete affidavits.

Those having serious criminal cases against them, two MLAs have declared cases related to murder, 11 MLAs have declared cases related to attempt to murder, and 4 MLAs who have declared cases related to kidnapping (IPC Section 363) in their affidavits. These include one MLA each from Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and an Independent.

Party-wise, 40 (38 per cent) of the 105 elected MLAs of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 26 (47 per cent) of the 55 elected MLAs of Shiv Sena, 17 (32 per cent) of the 53 MLAs from NCP, 15 (34 per cent) of the MLAs from Congress, and six (50 per cent) of the 12 Independents have serious criminal cases against them.

Moreover, 93 per cent or 264 of the 285 MLAs analysed in the new Maharashtra assembly are crorepatis, an increase of five percentage points from 88 per cent in 2014. Average assets of the newly elected MLAs have also more than doubled to Rs 22 crore per MLA compared to nearly Rs 11 crore in 2014 with more than 63 per cent (180) of the MLAs having assets worth over Rs 5 crore and above.

Among major parties, 100 of the 105 MLAs of the BJP, 51 of the 55 MLAs of the Shiv Sena, 47 of the 53 MLAs of the NCP and 42 of the 44 Congress MLAs are crorepatis, according to the report. The average assets of BJP MLAs are Rs 27.46 crore, while MLAs of the Shiv Sena have average assets of Rs 13.74 crore. Likewise, NCP and Congress MLAs have average assets of Rs 15.01 crore and Rs 24.46 crores, respectively.

BJP’s Parag Shah who was elected from Ghatkopar East constituency was the richest candidate with assets worth over Rs 500 crore followed by again BJP’s Mangalprabhat Lodha from Malabar Hill seat, who declared assets worth more than Rs 441 crore.

Meanwhile, the new assembly will have 24 women MLAs compared to 20 in the outgoing assembly.