74 per cent Delhi MLAs millionaires, three-fifth face criminal cases

Three-fourth of the new Delhi MLAs are millionaires, one-third have not studied beyond senior secondary and more than half have criminal cases against them, according to the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR).

According to ADR, 45 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislators of the 62, and seven of the eight Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs had declared more than Rs 1 crore assets while filing their nomination papers. There were 44 millionaire MLAs in 2015.

The average of assets per MLA in the new Delhi Assembly is Rs 14.29 crore, which is more than double the average of Rs 6.29 crore in 2015. Of the AAP legislators, the average assets per MLA is Rs 14.96 crore and in case of the BJP it's Rs 9.10 crore.

The richest AAP legislators as per their election affidavit are Dharampal Lakra (Mundka), followed by Promila Tokas (R.K. Puram) and Raaj Kumar Anand (Patel Nagar).

Rakhi Birla (Mangolpuri) is the poorest AAP legislator with Rs 76,000 assets, followed by Sanjeev Jha (Burari) at Rs 10 lakh and Som Dutt (Sadar Bazar) at Rs 11 lakh.

There has been a sharp jump in the number of MLAs with registered criminal cases. In 2020, 43 MLAs declared criminal cases against them while in 2015, 24 MLAs had criminal cases.

The number of MLAs with serious criminal cases, which included rape, attempt to murder and crimes against women, is 37. In terms of education, 23 MLAs are between 8th pass and 12th pass, 42 graduates and above, and five diploma holders.

While 39 MLAs are aged between 25 years and 50 years, 31 are in the 51-80 years age group. Of the 70 MLAs, eight are women against six in 2015. The Delhi Election Watch and the ADR analysed the affidavits of all 70 newly elected MLAs.

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