153 MPs have criminal charges against them in new Lok Sabha

153 MPs have criminal charges against them in new Lok Sabha
(SPECIAL REPORT)
By Prayaag Akbar

NEW DELHI: Ninety-eight elected members of the 15th Lok Sabha have failed to provide their PAN details to the Election Commission, according to a study conducted by the NGO collective National Election Watch. Another report, just released by the group, has found that 153 of 535 MPs had criminal charges against them. To compound matters, almost half of these MPs — 74 to be precise — are in the dock for the most serious offences against the Indian Penal Code like robbery, attempt to murder, inciting communal violence and the like.

Of the 98 MPs who refused to file their PAN details, National Election Watch has found that 25 are crorepatis. Rajkumari Ratna Singh of Pratapgarh, a member of the Indian National Congress’ surprise run in Uttar Pradesh, heads the list, with movable assets of around Rs 62 crores and immovable assets of Rs 5.5 crores. The Congress also has the most crorepatis in Lok Sabha, with 138 of their 206 winning candidates having assets of more than Rs 1 crore. The BJP has 58 such MPs. Even Marxist stalwart CPI[M] has amongst its ranks a solitary member of the crorepati club. The Samajwadi Party has 14 crorepatis in the Lok Sabha, though presumably none of them have computers.

Though election observers have been singing of a new dawn in electoral politics in India — with the polity supposedly moving towards a responsible, enlightened future — the figures suggest this is hardly the case. Of the 116 BJP MPs in the 15th Lok Sabha, 43 have criminal charges — 37% — while 19 [16%] have serious criminal charges. Of the 204 Indian National Congress Members of Parliament examined, 41 have criminal charges, while 12 have serious criminal charges. Regional outfits like the Samajwadi Party are even more prone to such politics: 35% — 8 out of their 23 — have serious criminal charges against them, while 9 have just criminal charges.

Keeping in mind the notorious politics of Bihar, it is impressive that the JD[U] has managed to keep these figures down to a degree, while Naveen Patnaik’s clean image seems justified, with only one of his party’s 14 MPs accused of serious criminal misdemeanour. Eight of the crorepati MPs who failed to declare their PAN details have serious criminal records. Again Rajkumari Ratna Singh tops the list as she is accused of three extremely serious violations of the Indian Penal Code, including attempt to murder, robbery and criminal intimidation. Angadi Channabasappa, BJP MP from Karnataka has, perhaps predictably, been accused of promoting enmity between different communities. Various other charges have been brought against a number of the candidates, including the charge of forgery against P. Karunakaran of CPI[M} in Kerala, and culpable homicide not amounting to murder, attempt to murder, and dacoity against Vinay Kumar, again of the Indian National Congress.

THESE REPORTS WERE prepared by studying the affidavits declared by 535 Members of Parliament. National Election Watch is an election-monitoring agency that was started by the Association for Democratic Reform [ADR], the organisation that filed the PIL which culminated in the Supreme Court order of 2003 that requires every Lok Sabha candidate to disclose their full financial, criminal and educational background.

A number of interesting facts have been thrown up by the number-crunching of this organisation. The average assets per MP in Haryana is an astonishing Rs 18 crores, which suggests a strong correlation between winning candidates and level of assets in the state. Next on the list is Andhra Pradesh, with the average amongst 42 candidates coming to the remarkable figure of Rs 15 crores. Meghalaya, one of the poorest States in India, is third on the list, with the two candidates averaging Rs 12 crores between them. Most of the other north-eastern States are on the opposite end of the spectrum, with Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Manipur all having winning candidates with average declared assets of Rs 50 lakhs or less. The sole Member of Parliament from Andaman & Nicobar Islands has Rs 12 lakhs of declared assets, which makes his territory the last on this list [¼]