Out of the 147 elected members to the 15th Assembly, this time 52 members (35 per cent) are facing criminal cases. This is two per cent rise in the number of members having criminal cases compared to the 14th Assembly which witnessed 48 (33 per cent) lawmakers having criminal records.
An analysis of the poll results by the Odisha Election Watch (OEW), shared with the media on Monday, stated that out of the 52 winners, serious criminal cases including attempt to murder, rape, kidnapping and crimes against women have been pending against 41 elected representatives.
Out of the 117 winners of the BJD, 32 (27 per cent) are facing criminal cases while nine out of 16 winners from Congress and eight out of 10 winners from BJP are facing criminal cases.
As per the analysis, only 23 MlAs who are below the age of 40 years have been elected to the Assembly this time. This is an 8 per cent fall in the number of young legislators compared to the 14th Assembly.
The 15th Assembly will have only 23 young legislators while their number was 36 in the 14th Assembly.
While three law makers belong to the age group of 22-30 years, 20 MlAs belong to the age group of 31-40 years. Eleven legislators including nine from BJD and two from Congress belong to 25-35 years age group, the OEW report pointed out.
A total of 73 (50 per cent) winners have declared their age to be between 25 and 50 years. 63 (43 per cent) winners have stated their age to be between 51 and 70 years and eleven winners are aged above 70 years.
Even though a total of 1,420 candidates had contested the Assembly polls, there were only 500 young candidates out of which only 23 could make it to the House.
Among the young members are Brajakishore Pradhan (Talcher), Bedabyasa Naik (Telkoi), Byomakesh Ray (Chandabali), Anubhab Patnaik (Khandapada), Akash DasNayak (Korei), Chandra Sarathi Behera (Cuttack-Sadar), Pranab Balbantaray (Dharmasala) and Ganeswar Patra (Badasahi).
The report pointed out that out of the 147 winners analysed, 76 (52 per cent) are crorepatis. In 2009 Assembly elections, there were 33 (22 per cent) crorepati winners.