Altogether 38 per cent MlAs in Bihar and 70 per cent MPs from the State are facing criminal charges and they belong to all the political parties. Of the 243 MlAs, criminal cases are registered against 141 and 97 of them are facing charges of serious crime. There are 40 members of lok Sabha from Bihar and 28 of them have declared criminal cases against them.
The figures were brought by Bihar Election Watch (BEW) in its findings which is based on the affidavits filed by these lawmkers and analysed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
BEW coordinator Rajiv Kumar said, "The Supreme Court on Wednesday had pointed out the increasing criminalisation in politics while directing the Centre to come up with a scheme to set-up special fast-track courts that would deal exclusively with the criminal cases pending against legislators and Parliamentarians. It is hoped that the Centre would come up with the scheme to set up special fast-track courts by December 13, as recommended by the apex court, in order to expedite ruling of pending criminal cases against legislators."
Among the political parties, RJD has the maximum number of MlAs with criminal cases (46) followed by JD(U), with 37 and BJP with 34 MlAs.
The status of lok Sabha MPs from Bihar with declared criminal cases against themselves is also quite alarming. Out of 40 MPs whose affidavits were analysed by ADR, 28 or 70 per cent of total MPs are facing cases against themselves of which 20 have serious criminal cases pending against themselves.
All 4 MPs from RJD have declared serious criminal cases while 3 of the six MPs of lJP and eight of BJP have declared serious criminal cases.
The Rajya Sabha too is not immune from MPs of Bihar with declared criminal cases. Out of 16 Rajya Sabha MPs whose affidavits were analysed, five have declared criminal cases of which three have declared serious offences.
Thus 19 per cent of the total Rajya Sabha MPs from Bihar have declared serious criminal cases against themselves.