65 newly elected MLAs ‘crorepatis’, five face criminal cases

JAMMU: A total of 65 newly elected MLAs, who constitute nearly 75 of the total strength, elected to the 12th Legislative Assembly, are ‘crorepatis’ (multi-millionaires). Of them, 56 legislators have been elected to the state Assembly for the first time.

Arteev Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, November 25

A total of 65 newly elected MLAs, who constitute nearly 75 of the total strength, elected to the 12th Legislative Assembly, are ‘crorepatis’ (multi-millionaires). Of them, 56 legislators have been elected to the state Assembly for the first time.
Interestingly, the winning chances for a ‘crorepati’ candidate in the 2014 Assembly elections were 20 per cent while for a candidate with low assets, less than Rs 1 crore, it was 4 per cent.
Apart from this, five newly elected MLAs, who constitute six per cent of the total Assembly strength, have criminal cases against them. Of them, two MLAs are from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) — Mohammad Yousuf Bhat from Shopian and Asiea from the Hazartbal constituency.
The information was provided by Balvinder Singh, state coordinator, Association for Democratic Reforms, — a national non-political organisation that spearheads the movement for improving and strengthening electoral reforms in the country.
The average assets (both movable and immovable) per MLA, elected to the 12th Assembly, are Rs 4.56 crore. The average assets for the 28 PDP MLAs are Rs 7.78 crore while for the 25 BJP MLAs, the average assets are Rs 1.80 crore.
Similarly, the average assets of 15 National Conference MLAs are worth Rs 5.57 crore and the 12 Congress MLAs have average assets of Rs 1.78 crore.
PDP MLA from the Amira Kadal constituency in Srinagar district Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari has topped the list of multi-millionaire legislators with assets more than Rs 84 crore. He is followed by his party colleague from the Zadibal Assembly seat, Abid Hussain Ansari, with assets more than
Rs 27 crore.
National Conference provincial president and Nagrota MLA Devender Singh Rana stood third in the list with assets of over Rs 24 crore.
The BJP MLA from the Nowshera Assembly seat, Ravinder Kumar Raina, has the lowest assets among the newly elected MLAs. He has declared his assets worth Rs 21,000. He is followed by PDP MLA from Rafiabad Yawar Ahmad Mir who has assets of Rs 2.2 lakh. He is the youngest of the MLAs.
A total of 60 MLAs have declared liabilities, of which three have liabilities of Rs 1 crore and above.
As far as the educational qualification of the new MLAs is concerned, 29 MLAs (who constitute 33 per cent of the total strength) are Class XII pass or below while 58 MLAs (nearly 67 per cent of the total strength) are graduate or above.
Of all the graduate MLAs, 25 have professional degrees, nine are postgraduate and one has a Ph.D.