The Association for Democratic Reforms and National Election Watch (ADRNEW) has come up with a report on the analysis based on declared pending criminal cases of candidates fielded during the elections of 2008 in Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram.
According to the report, 13 percent of the contesting candidates (879 out of 6870 candidates) from five states had self-declared pending criminal cases as per their affidavits during 2008 assembly elections.
394 (6 percent) candidates in 2008 assembly elections have declared serious criminal cases against themselves.
The report further states that 21 percent of MLAs (128 out of 607 MLAs) from these five states have self-declared pending criminal cases, and 47 MLAs had declared serious criminal cases against themselves.
Delhi has maximum percentage (43 percent) of MLAs with declared criminal cases against them followed by Madhya Pradesh with 25 percent among the five states.
The ADRNEW report says that Madhya Pradesh has highest percentage of 11 percent of MLAs with serious criminal cases followed by Delhi and Chhattisgarh with 9percent.
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Mizoram, with 7percent has the lowest percentage of MLAs with criminal cases among the five states.
The report further states that among major parties Indian National Congress (INC) had fielded 30 percent tainted candidates in Delhi, 31 percent in Madhya Pradesh during 2008 Assembly elections.
BJP had given tickets to 35 percent candidates with criminal cases in Delhi, while 22 percent tainted candidates were given tickets in 2008 Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections.
About 38 percent of MLAs from INC from Delhi and 46 percent of MLAs from BJP in Delhi have criminal cases against them, whereas in Madhya Pradesh 34 percent of INC MLAs and 20 percent of MLAs of BJP have self declared criminal cases.
The report also conducted analysis based on assets, where 264 (43 percent) MLAs out of the 607 from the five states are crorepatis while 837 (12 percent) candidates out of 6870 were crorepatis.
Delhi has the highest percentage of about 69 percent of crorepati MLAs followed by Rajasthan with 46 percent and Madhya Pradesh with 38 percent.
With regards to analysis based on gender, the report stated that out of 7520 candidates contested during 2008 assembly elections in five states, only 8 percent (564) were women candidates.
Lowest percentage of women candidates were fielded in Mizoram (4 percent), while Delhi and Chhattisgarh states recorded 9 percent women candidates, which was the highest among the five states.
Out of 630 MLAs from the five state assemblies only 67 (11 percent) are women.
Rajasthan has the highest percentage of women MLAs (14 percent), while Mizoram assembly has no women representation, and Delhi has only 4 percent women MLAs.
The Supreme Court stood by its order to disqualify convicted politicians from serving as parliamentarians or state legislatures.
The Union Cabinet had approved an ordinance to reverse the Supreme Court judgment mandating the immediate disqualification of lawmakers convicted for a criminal offence punishable with a jail term of more than two years.
The ordinance sought to reverse the Supreme Court judgement that had not only disqualified lawmakers convicted of offences with two years or more in jail, but also barred from contesting elections.
The UPA Government on October 2 decided to withdraw the controversial ordinance that sought to protect convicted lawmakers.