Chandigarh, March 1
Twenty newly elected MLAs in Punjab have criminal cases pending against them, while another 20 of them are undermatriculates and 36 undergraduates. The house will have the wisdom of only 15 postgraduates across party lines and another 45 graduates.
Punjab Election Watch, a non-governmental organisation, today urged Parkash Singh Badal not to give a ministerial berth to any MLA having a criminal record or undermarticulates. Of the winning SAD-BJP combination, 11 Akalis and two from the BJP have criminal records. Seven Congress MLAs have similar records. These include cases of attempt to murder faced by an SAD MLA.
Cutting across party lines, as many as 11 MLAs face cases of cheating and corruption. A Congress MLA faces a case of kidnapping while a cheque issued by another MLA of the same party had bounced and he is facing a trial. An SAD MLA has been booked for theft and 4 SAD MLAs are facing cases of rioting. The number of cases is more against some of the MLAs.
Notably, candidates who are facing cases of murder and rape have been defeated in this election.
On the education front the SAD, BJP and the Congress have 11, one and six MLAs, respectively, who are undermatriculate while two Independents are also undermatriculate. Of the 36 undergraduates the three parties have 12, eight and 16 such MLAs, respectively. The three parties have 18, five and 19 graduates, respectively. Three Independents are also graduates. The SAD has seven postgraduates, BJP five and Congress three.
The importance of money power can be gauged from the fact that the average per capita assets of the 116 winners is Rs 3.55 crore, says Hitender Jain, a member of the core group of the NGO. When the parties went to the polls the average per capita assets of the candidates was only Rs 1.61 crore. This means the poorer candidates have been defeated or else the average would have come down.
Another interesting aspect is the age profile. Five of the MLAs, including the chief minister-designate are above 70.
