Presidential poll: 33% in electoral college have crimil record

New Delhi, July 14: As the tion is set to elect a new President, a report by a think tank said on Friday that around 33 per cent of members in the electoral college, which includes members of both houses of Parliament as well as state assemblies, have declared crimil cases against them.

The Association for Democratic Reforms and tiol Election Watch said this, based on the alysis of self-sworn affidavits of 4,852 of 4,896 MPs and MLAs.

The presidential election, which will be held on July 17, has Ram th Kovind as the candidate supported by the ruling tiol Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and Meira Kumar — the first woman to become Lok Sabha speaker - as Opposition candidate.

However, women constitute only nine per cent of the electoral college — only 451 out of 4,852 MPs and MLAs are women.

According to the report, 184 (33 per cent) out of 543 Lok Sabha MPs, 44 (19 per cent) out of 231 Rajya Sabha MPs and 1,353 (33 per cent) out of 4,078 MLAs across all states and union territories, have declared crimil cases against themselves in their affidavits in the most recent elections.

Of the 4,852 MPs and MLAs alysed, 993 or 20 per cent members have declared serious crimil cases against themselves.

“Based on the number of votes that MPs and MLAs who have declared crimil cases, are entitled to cast, a total of 3,67,393 votes (34 per cent) out of 10,91,472 votes alysed are of MPs and MLAs who have declared crimil cases against themselves,” the report said.

Moreover, 3,460 or 71 per cent out of 4,852 MPs and MLAs alysed are multi-millioires as per their self-sworn affidavits submitted to the Election Commission at the time of nomition for contesting elections.

Altogether, 445 (82 per cent) out of 543 Lok Sabha MPs, 194 (84 per cent) out of 231 Rajya Sabha MPs, 2721 (68 per cent) out of 4,078 MLAs from all state and UT assemblies are multi-millioires.

Across the electoral college, the Bharatiya Jata Party (BJP) has 31 per cent MPs and MLAs with crimil cases, Congress has 26 per cent, Trimool Congress has 29 per cent, Communist Party of India (Marxist) has 49 per cent, Communist Party of India (CPI) has 58 per cent such MPs and MLAs. (IANS)