Criminals as MPs

A front-page story of this newspaper on Wednesday has revealed something very interesting. It says, around 44 per cent of the new 62 Rajya Sabha members elected this year have different criminal cases registered against them. Eleven of them – which is 18 per cent – on the other hand have been accused of serious crimes like murder, attempt to murder, rape, dacoity and theft. Of the 11 MPs facing serious charges, one has declared a case of murder against him, two have declared attempt-to-murder cases, and three face cases of crimes against women. Out of these three MPs, one has declared a rape charge against him. The news-item was released by an agency and is based on an analysis of the self-declared affidavits of the newly-elected MPs done by National Election Watch (NEW) and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). It says that these MPs belong to different leading political parties – Narendra Modi's BJP, Sonia Gandhi's Congress, Sharad Pawar's NCP, Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress, as also the YSRCP, BJD, DMK, RJD, JD(U) and Republican Party of India. The analysis has also given a state-wise break-up of the MPs facing criminal charges – four are from Maharashtra, two from Bihar, one from Tamil Nadu, one from West Bengal, two from Andhra Pradesh, and one each from Gujarat, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Assam. The analysis however has not named the MPs, though our readers will definitely want to know the name of the lone Assam MP mentioned in it. It is, however, not that persons with criminal cases against them have been elected to Parliament. A similar analysis conducted by the same two agencies after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections had said that out of the 539 winners as many as 233 MPs had declared criminal cases against themselves. Going by simple arithmetic, the 17th Lok Sabha has close to half of its new Members with declared criminal cases. It is also a fact that more persons with criminal cases against them are being elected to Lok Sabha in recent times. An analysis conducted after the 2009 Lok Sabha election had revealed that 76 of the 543 winners had had declared serious criminal cases against themselves. In 2014, it was 112 out of 542.