Puducherry: Half of the 30 MLAs elected to the legislative assembly of Puducherry declared that their highest educational qualification was between Class 5 and Class 12, as per an analysis by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

Among the 15 elected members, two MLAs have passed Class 5, three passed Class 8 and seven passed Class 10 and three passed Class 12. Apart from these 15, an elected member declared that he is illiterate. The assembly also includes a diploma holder, six graduates, three graduate professionals, three postgraduates and a doctorate. The analysis also revealed that criminal cases were pending against more than one-third (11) of the elected members. Four of the 30 MLAs have criminal cases including murder, attempt to murder, theft and bribery pending against them.

Congress has five MLAs with criminal cases followed by AINRC (three), DMK (two) and AIADMK (one).

The analysis also revealed that 25 members (83%) are crorepatis. AINRC MLA Ashok Anand (124 crore) leads the list of members with highest assets followed by Congress MLA A John Kumar (37.85 crore) and another Congress MLA V P Sivakolundhu (29.85 crore). Congress has 13 crorepati MLAs followed by AINRC (eight), AIADMK (four), DMK (two) and an independent MLA.

The analysis also found that three of the MLAs (two Congress and one AINRC) did not declare income tax details. The average assets of 10 MLAs, who were re-elected in 2016 stood at 22.64 crore.

The average assets of re-elected AINRC MLAs doubled in the last five years while those of Congress and AIADMK increased by one and half times. AINRC MLAs have an average asset of 23 crore followed by DMK MLAs (21.48 crore), Congress MLAs (9.89 crore) and AIADMK MLAs (5.69 crore).