The lone independent candidate Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav from Purnia, has declared 41 criminal cases against himself

As many as 21 of the winning 40 Lok Sabha candidates from Bihar in the recently concluded general election have declared criminal cases against them, a report of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) said.

The lone independent candidate Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav from Purnia, has declared 41 criminal cases against himself.

Of the 12 BJP MPs, as many as eight (67%), including Janardan Singh Sigriwal (Maharajganj), Giriraj Singh (Begusarai), Ashok Kumar Yadav (Madhubani), Dr Sanjay Jaiswal (Paschim Champaran), Pradeep Kumar Singh (Araria), Nityanand Rai (Ujiarpur), Radha Mohan Singh (Purvi Champaran) and Gopaljee Thakur (Darbhanga), have declared criminal cases, the ADR report said.

All four RJD MPs, including Surendra Prasad Yadav (Jahanabad constituency), Misa Bharti (Patliputra), Sudhakar Singh (Buxar) and Abhay Kumar Sinha (Aurangabad) have declared criminal cases of serious nature.

Manoj Kumar (Sasaram constituency) is the lone among three Congress MPs facing serious criminal charges.

On the assets front, barring Jitan Ram Manjhi, Gaya MP from the Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) (HAM (S) and Sudama Prasad, Arrah MP from the CPI-ML (Liberation), the remaining 38 MPs have declared assets worth over ₹1 crore.

Veena Devi of LJP(RV), MP from Vaishali has highest assets of ₹46.71 crore while BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad (Patna Sahib) is second with assets worth 40.60 crore and Dr Sanjay Jaiswal (Paschim Champaran) ranks third with assets of ₹29.05 crore. The average assets of winning candidates is ₹9.60 crore, the ADR report said.