Politics in India, a Safe Haven for Criminals

By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 12 January 2012, 20:46 IST   |    2 Comments
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Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister

Bangalore: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati tops the list of chief ministers with the maximum assets in the five election-bound states. Her assets are worth 87.27 crore and 35 percent of her ministers have criminal cases pending against them as per the report from National Election Watch (NEW) and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) based on the affidavits submitted before the Election Commission.

The data reported that RTI responses from five states showed Mayawati has the highest assets worth 87.27 crore. Chief Minister of Manipur Okram Ibobi Singh has the lowest assets at 6 lakh. Around one-third of a total of 100 ministers in the five states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur have self-declared pending criminal charges.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was noted to have assets worth 9 crore while Goa Chief Minister, Digambar Kamat has assets worth Rs 3.2 crore. Uttarakhand Chief Minister B.C. Khanduri has assets worth Rs 1.69 crore.

28 percent of MLA’s which means that, out of 690 legislators analyzed, 190 have criminal cases against them. 89 of them had serious charges against them. Prakash Badal is the only one who has a criminal case amongst the 5 Chief Ministers and faces charges of cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy.

The report also suggests that Uttar Pradesh has the maximum percentage of ministers (35 percent) with pending criminal cases. Dhirendra Pratap Singh of BSP in Uttar Pradesh was seen having the highest number of criminal cases - 29, followed by Sushil Kumar also of the BSP in Uttar Pradesh with 14 cases pending against him. The charges were related to murder or attempt to murder.

Another finding from the report suggests that except for Okram Ibobi Singh, everyone else has declared their PAN information. It was noted that 35 percent of the total analyzed MLA’s are crorepatis. Punjab has the maximum crorepati MLA’s at 67 percent, followed by Goa at 55 percent, Uttar Pradesh 32 percent, Uttarakhand at 16 percent and Manipur at 2 percent.