• Survey finds, average assets of a UP MLA stand at ` 5.85 crore
• 95 legislators have studied till Class 12, while 4 are just literates

Lucknow: The seventeenth Uttar Pradesh Assembly is perhaps richer, much older and slightly less educated than the previous one.

Sample this: A report by UP Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 396 legislatures states that 313 of them are ‘crorepatis.’

The average asset of a UP MLA stood at Rs 5.85 crore, accordingto the study. The BJP, which has 304 MLAs tops the list of these money-bags with 235 followed by 42 of the total 49 Samajwadi Party MLAs and BSP and Congress 15 and 5 respectivley.

The UP assembly has a strength of 403 members but the election watchdog scrutinised the affidavits of only 396 as the remaining were unavailable.

The ADR report claims that 35 per cent (140) legislators have criminal cases registered against them and 27 per cent legislators have some sort of links with crime. Of the 304 MLAs, 77 have criminal cases against them, while 18 in the 49-member Samajwadi Party are in the same category.

In the Bahujan Samaj Party, which has 18 members, two have criminal antecedents while the Congress has one such member.

In BSP, the richest legislators are Guddu Jamali from Azamgarh and Vinay Tiwari from Gorakhpur. Interestingly, two BJP MLAs, who are ministers, still have loans to repay. They are Nand Gopal Nandi and Sidharth Nath Singh.

The low asset MLAs include Ajay Kumar Lallu of Congress and Dhananjay and Vijay Rajbhar of BJP. Of the 396 MLAs, 95 have not gone beyond Class 12 education level. Four MLAs are just literate while five are diploma holders.

Nearly 206 MLAs are in the age group of 25 to 50 years while 190 are between 51 and 80 years. ADR coordinator Santosh Srivastava said the survey was conducted ahead of the Assembly polls to enable people know their legislators.

“Normally, we do such surveys before the elections but they are done phase wise so this time we have done it in a comprehensive manner,” he said