Seven of the total 29 parliamentarians elected from Madhya Pradesh in the recently held lok Sabha polls have criminal record, revealed a report of the Madhya Pradesh Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) released here on Wednesday.
Interestingly, all the 7 new MPs with criminal records are of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that always boasts of purity in politics. Of the seven MPs facing criminal charges three are facing serious declared criminal cases while the Opposition Congress’ contribution to the tally is nil.
In terms of percentage 25.9 per cent of the total winning candidates from the State have criminal background including 11.1 per cent that is facing serious declared criminal cases.
The ADR statement said that the criteria set for serious crimes is the offences for which maximum punishment is of five years and more and includes non-bailable offences, electoral offence under IPC 171 E or bribery, offences related to loss to exchequer, assault, murder, kidnap, rape, offences mentioned in the Representation of the People Act (section 8) and offences under Prevention of corruption Act.
Besides, the election watchdog report says that 86 per cent MPs elected from the State are crorepati including 23 of the total 27 winners from the BJP and 2 from 2 of the Congress. The average assets of the BJP candidates are over 3 crores while that of the Congress is 119 crores.
Former union minister and Congress party’s Chhindwara MP Kamalnath has the highest amount of assets that are over rupees 206 crores followed by his party colleague and also a former union minister Guna MP Jyoritaditya Scindia
who owns assets worth over Rs 33 crore. The richest BJP MP from the state is Vidisha MP Sushma Swaraj who owns assets worth over Rs 17 crore.