Skip to main content
Source
The New Indian Express
http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/442-Crorepatis-in-New-LS-More-Baddies-as-Well/2014/05/19/article2232606.ece
Date
City
New Delhi

NEW DELHI: The new Lok Sabha will be the richest, with 82 per cent of winners listed as ‘crorepatis’, compared to about 58 per cent in the last Lok Sabha.

The analysis of the financial background was done by watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which compared 541 winners of the latest elections with their predecessors in the just-dissolved Parliament.

It found that 442 winners were ‘crorepatis’ or  had declared over `1 crore as assets in their affidavits.

The average assets per MP in the 16th Lok Sabha is `14.61 crore, while it was `5.35  crore for the outgoing Parliament. Among the major parties, the BJP has a higher proportion of winning millionaires - 84 per cent, compared to 78 per cent in the Congress. Seven parties, all of them regional, had 100 percent record in this category. They are TDP, YSR Congress Party, SP, SAD, RJD, JD(S) and JD(U).

Not surprisingly, the ADR also found that the chances of a rich candidate to get elected to the Lok Sabha is much higher.

“The chances of winning for a crorepati candidate in the Lok Sabha 2014 elections are 20 per cent, whereas for a candidate with low assets (below `1 crore) it is just 2 per cent,” said the ADR statement.

Further, it was found that out of the 449 candidates who have declared assets over `10 crore, 29 percent or 131 candidates got elected.

The chance of winning comes down to 22 percent, when the asset size was between `5-10 crore and goes down to 17 percent for candidates with only `1 crore to `5 crore to their name.

The new Lok Sabha will not just have older MPs but has more criminals compared to the previous one.

According to data of the winning candidates, about 186 (34 per cent) have criminal cases against 158 (30 per cent) in the 15th Lok Sabha, which was dissolved on Sunday.

 The BJP has the largest number of candidates with criminal cases followed by the Congress.

The National Election Watch and ADR analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 541 winners out of 543 winners in the Lok Sabha  elections and found that the chances of winning for a candidate with criminal cases in the Lok Sabha 2014 elections are 13 per cent whereas for a candidate with a clean record it is 5 per cent.