More than half of the newly elected representatives to the Lok Sabha have criminal records and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has the highest among all the parties, according to a report by Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), an NGO that is working on elections and political reforms.
The NGO says that the 2019 elections have seen a 26 per cent increase in representatives having criminal records than 2014.
The report says that 233 of the 539 Members of Parliament elected have criminal cases against them. As far as BJP is concerned, the report says that 116 of its members have criminal records.
While the Congress has 29 of its elected members with criminal cases, the JDU has 13 members DMK has ten and TMC has nine members with criminal cases, the ADB said. The ADB in the report said that most of the cases related to rape, attempt to murder of women, crime against women and even murder.
In the present Lok Sabha, 11 MPs have been slapped with murder charges. Five BJP representatives, one each from the Congress, YSRC and NCP, and an independent come with murder charges. As many as 30 new members have cases related to attempt to murder.
Of the winners, 19 have cases related to women, of which three have been charged with attempts to rape. The report also says that cases of kidnapping have been charged against six of the new MPs.
The report also points out that Congress representative from Kerala Dean Kuriakose has about 242 cases against him, which includes cases of culpable homicide, criminal intimidation, robbery and house trespass.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha, as many as 185 members had criminal cases, which included 112 members having very serious criminal charges.
