Telangana, the youngest state of India, is getting ready to witness its first independent Assembly elections on December 7.
On September 6, this year, the then chief minister Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao (now designated as the caretaker CM) dissolved the Assembly, paving way for the early elections.
Counting of votes will happen along with Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram and Rajasthan on December 11.
As the state is ready to elect a new government, take a look at an analysis on sitting MLAs based on their financial assets, criminal cases, educational qualifications and gender representation, published by Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR).
The report, however, analyses MLAs elected in 2014 taking view of the party they fought with and does not consider the defections.
Crorepati legislators
Out of the 119 MLAs elected to the Assembly in 2014, 83 were crorepati, says the ADR report, compiled on the basis of election affidavits filed by these MLAs.
Going party-wise, the data reveals that Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) had 41 crorepatis out of 63 elected legislators. For Congress it was 17 out 21 winning MLAs, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) 13 out of 15; All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) 5 out of 7; and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 3 out of 5; and rest were either independent or from other contesting parties.
TRS MLA from Nagarkurnool Marri Janardhan Reddy had the highest declared assets worth more than Rs 111 crore (Rs 1,11,48,64,782). He was followed by another TRS MLA Pailla Shekar Reddy, whose total assets amounted to over Rs 61 crore (Rs 61,96,60,334).
MJ Reddy also had the highest declared liability worth more than Rs 54 crore (Rs 54,74,30,865).
In terms of average assets, TDP tops the list with Rs 11.67 crore, while TRS, Congress, and AIMIM had Rs 7.85 crore, Rs 7.76 crore and Rs 7.63 crore, respectively.
Criminal cases
In 2014, a total of 67 MLAs with criminal cases against them were elected to the Assembly. This ran through party lines. This makes up around 56 percent of all the legislators.
Out of these 67 MLAs, 46 had declared serious criminal cases. These included murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, causing communal disharmony etc.
Among 63 elected TRS MLAs, 41 (including KCR) had criminal cases against them. This was against 7 out of 21 Congress MLAs, 9 out of 15 TDP MLAs, 5 out of 7 AIMIM MLAs, 2 out of 5 BJP MLAs. Rest 3 were either independent or from other contesting parties.
Education
A total of 74 MLAs out of 119 had an educational qualification equivalent to graduate or above. This amounts to 62 percent of the legislators.
As many as 41 MLAs – 34 percent – declared their qualification to be 12th pass or below.
Age
Out of 119 MLAs, 12 were aged 40 or less while 45 MLAs were between 41 and 50 years. Another 44 MLAs were aged in the range of 51-60 years, 18 were falling in the age group of 61-70 in the state.
Gender representation
In the Telangana state, only eight percent of legislators are female. This means out of 119 MLAs, 100 are men while only nine are women.
Among the nine women MLAs, six came from the TRS while three came from the Congress.
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