A party-wise breakup showed that 46 of the 112 BJD MLAs (41 per cent), 14 of the 23 BJP MLAs (61 per cent) and 6 of the 9 Congress MLAs have declared criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits.A report released on Monday by Association For Democratic Reforms (ADR), on the newly elected Odisha MLAs, has found 46 per cent had declared criminal cases against them with one Congress MLA reporting 51 cases lodged against himself.
The report, which analysed the educational qualifications, income details, criminal backgrounds of the MLAs and demographic date of the new Assembly, said a total of 60 MLAs have been re-elected.
Of the total 146 MLAs, only 13 (9 per cent) are women, slightly up from 11 (7 percent) women in the last Assembly.
The number of MLAs who declared cases against themselves has also gone up to 67 (46 per cent) from 52 (35 per cent) in 2014.
A party-wise breakup showed that 46 of the 112 BJD MLAs (41 per cent), 14 of the 23 BJP MLAs (61 per cent) and 6 of the 9 Congress MLAs have declared criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits.
ADR states that the Congress’ Sanakhemundi MLA Ramesh Chandra Jena has declared 51 criminal cases against himself, including cases related to murder, attempt to murder, extortion, assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty, criminal intimidation.
An examination of income and assets of MLAs shows 95 of them (65 per cent) are crorepatis, which means they have assets worth or in excess of Rs 1 crore. In the previous Assembly 76 (52 per cent) MLAs were crorepatis. Chief Minister and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) chief Naveen Patnaik, elected from Hinjili and Bijepur, has the most assets – over Rs 63 crore. He is followed by BJD MLA Naba Kishore Das from Jharsuguda whose assets are worth over Rs 33 crore and BJD MLA Saroj Meher from Patnagarh (Bolangir) with over Rs 31 crore, the report finds.
Graduation or above is the predominant educational qualification in the new Assembly. While 43 (29 per cent) MLAs have declared that they had only done their schooling (between classes 5 and 12), 101 (69 per cent) MLAs have declared having an educational qualification as graduate or above.
ADR data on age finds that only two (1 per cent) MLAs have declared their age to be between 25 and 30 years while 13 (9 per cent) MLAs have declared their age to be between 31 and 40 years.
A total of 123(84 per cent) MLAs declared their age to be between 41 and 70 years while 8(5 per cent) MLAs have declared their age to be between 71 and 80.
