Thirty-seven per cent of the
sitting MLAs in West Bengal - 104 out of the 282 - have
criminal cases against them, according to a study jointly
conducted by the West Bengal Election Watch and the
Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
In a report released on Wednesday, the civil society
organisations said that 90 (32 per cent) of the sitting
legislators in the state assembly have declared having serious
criminal cases against them.
"Serious criminal cases" are non-bailable offences
that entail punishment for more than five years, a
spokesperson of the West Bengal Election Watch (WBEW) said.
The WBEW along with the ADR has analysed the criminal
background, financial, education, gender and other details of
sitting MLAs based on their self-sworn affidavits and found
that 61 of the 205 Trinamool Congress MLAs and 15 of the 39
legislators of the Congress have serious criminal cases
against them.
Ten of the 24 CPI(M) MLAs, three of the BJP''s six
legislators and one Independent MLA also have serious criminal
cases against them.
Seven MLAs have cases related to murder against them,
24 have been booked in attempt to murder cases while cases
related to crime against women have been lodged against 10
MLAs, according to the "Analysis of criminal background,
financial, education, gender and other details of 282 MLAs out
of the 294 sitting MLAs".
Ten seats are vacant in the current assembly, while
analysis of the affidavits of two MLAs could not be done as
they were "unclear", the report said.
There are 97 ''crorepati'' MLAs. Of them, 78 belong to
the ruling TMC and 13 are from the Congress, it said.
The CPI(M) and the BJP have two crorepati MLAs each
and of the two other such legislators, one belongs to the
Revolutionary Socialist Party and one is Independent.
The survey also found that 92 MLAs have educational
qualification between 8th standard pass and 12th standard pass
while 187 are graduates and above.
While two MLAs are diploma holders, one is just
literate, it stated.
There are 41 women MLAs (15 per cent of the total
strength) in the assembly, while 185 (66 per cent) are aged
between 51 and 80 years.
The analysis has been done on the basis of the
affidavits submitted by candidates prior to the 2016 assembly
elections and by-elections conducted after that.
The next assembly election will be held in eight
phases between March 27 and April 29.