As many as 15sittingMLAs of Assam have criminal cases against them with 11 lawmakers having serious criminal cases, three others have cases related to murders. The above analysis is based on the affidavit submitted by the candidates prior to the 2016 Assemblcy elections and bye elections conducted thereafter. The 'Association for Democratic Reforms' (ADR) and 'Assam Election Watch' recently analyzed the criminal, financial and other background details of119 out of the 126 sitting MLAs.
In the current Assam Assembly, six seats are vacant. The data of MLA MansingRongpi (BJP) has not been analysed due to unclear affidavit available on the Election Commission of India (ECI) website at the time of making this report. The ADR's analysis has found that seven out of 59 MLAs from the BJP, five of the 20 MLAs from the Congress, two out of the 14 MLAs from the AIUDF and one Independent MLA have declared in their respective affidavits that there are criminal cases against them.
A total of six of the 59 MLAs from the BJP, three of the 20 MLAs from the INC and two of the 14 MLAs from AIUDF have serious criminal cases against themselves as stated in their respective affidavits. The trend of MLAs with criminal cases shows that the Assam Assembly elected in 2006 had seven MLAs with criminal records which increased by two fold to 15 MLAs in the Assembly formed in 2016. Similarly, MLAs with serious criminal cases increased to 10 in 2016 from five in 2006.