A stark finding from a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) indicates that a significant majority of legislators in Bihar’s outgoing assembly are facing criminal charges. The report, released on Monday, reveals that 66% of the MLAs have declared criminal cases against themselves, and alarmingly, 49% of these are for serious offenses.
The analysis, based on the affidavits of 241 out of 243 MLAs, found that 158 sitting legislators have criminal cases. Of these, 119 face severe allegations, including charges related to murder, attempted murder, and crimes against women.
Across political parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) each have 53 MLAs declaring criminal cases. The Janata Dal (United), led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, has 21 such MLAs, followed by the Congress with 14. Smaller parties and independent legislators also feature in the report’s findings.
The report further details that among those with serious criminal charges, the RJD leads with 43 MLAs, followed closely by the BJP with 41. The JD(U) has 13 MLAs with serious charges, while the Congress has nine, and CPI(M-L) has seven.
With the Bihar assembly elections scheduled for November 6 and 11, and results due on November 14, the ADR report sheds light on the background of the representatives. Beyond legal entanglements, the report also touches upon the demographic makeup of the assembly, noting that a majority of MLAs (over 50%) are between 51 and 80 years old, and only 12% are women.