Nearly 60% of newly elected Maharashtra MLAs face criminal charges: ADR

As many as 176 newly-elected MLAs in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly are facing criminal charges, as per data released by an advocacy group on Saturday.

On analysing self-sworn affidavits of 285 of the total 288 MLAs, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) found that 62 per cent (176 MLAs) have criminal cases pending against them while 40 per cent (113 MLAs) have serious criminal cases.

The ADR said affidavits of the remaining three MLAs could not be analysed as their completed documents were not available on the Election Commission's website.

Comparing the present findings with the data on outgoing legislators, the ADR said that in the 2014 elections, the state Assembly had 165 MLAs with criminal cases, of which 115 were facing serious criminal charges.

The advocacy group also found that the new Assembly has more number of millionaire MLAs than the outgoing one.

There are 264 (93 per cent) millionaire MLAs compared to 253 (88 per cent) in the outgoing Assembly, the data stated.

"The average of MLAs' assets in the new assembly is Rs 22.42 crore, which was Rs 10.87 crore in 2014. At least 118 MLAs have been re-elected in 2019 elections and the average assets of re-elected MLAs in 2019 is Rs 25.86 crore," the release said.