Comments
Eighty-nine per cent or 106 of the 119 Legislators elected to the Telangana Assembly are crorepatis. At the same time, 61 per cent or 73 of them have a criminal record.
Basedon the sworn affidavits filed by the MLAs, an analysis by the Telangana Election Watch and the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) shows the average value of legislators’ assets is ₹15.71 crore.
On criminal record, 40 per cent or 47 MLAs had serious criminal cases registered against them.
In comparison, in the maiden State Assembly in 2014, 56 per cent or 67 MLAs had declared criminal cases against, and about 39 per cent or 46 of them had serious criminal records such as attempt to murder or crimes against women.
Financial status
In the 2014 Assembly, the number and percentage of crorepatis was 83 or 70 per cent. This has increased to 106 or 89 per cent in the 119-member House now.
A total of 83 or 94 per cent of the elected 88 members of the ruling TRS fall into the category.
In comparison, 14 or 74 per cent of the elected 19 MLAs of the Congress; 5 out of 7 or 71 per cent from the MIM were crorepatis, the report said.
The number of affluent seems to have grown in the TRS, where it has risen from 65 per cent in 2014 to 94 per cent in 2018.
In the Congress, there is a fall from 81 per cent to 74 per cent, while it is static for the AIMIM and a decline for the TDP from 87 per cent to 50 per cent.
A significant feature was the rise in the average asset size of a legislators. It has nearly doubled from ₹7.70 crore in 2014 to ₹15.51 crore in 2018. If 51 per cent of the legislators had an average asset size of ₹5 crore and above, about 24 per cent were between ₹2-5 crore, the report revealed.
Average asset sizes
Party-wise, the average asset size of the 88 TRS legislators stood at ₹14.64 crore, while it was ₹26.14 crore for the Congress and ₹10.84 crore for the AIMIM.
Three MLAs — Kotamireddy Rajgopal Reddy, Congress from Nalgonda’s Munugode with ₹314 crore (both movable and immovable); Marri Janardhan Reddy, TRS from Nagarkurnool constituency of the same district at ₹161 crore and Kandala Upender Reddy, Congress of Palair constituency in Khammam with ₹91 crore — were among the top.
At the lower end, were Syed Ahmed Pasha Quadri, AIMIM of Yakutpura with assets of ₹19 lakh; Ravi Shankar Sunke, TRS from Choppadandi, Karimnagar district with ₹20 lakh and Athram Sakku, Congress from Asifabad of Kumaram Bheem Asifabad district with ₹27 lakh.
Criminal record
Going party-wise, the ruling TRS has shown a slight decline in the percentage of MLAs with declared criminal cases from 65 per cent to 57 per cent between 2014 and 2018. For the Congress, it was more than doubled from 33 per cent to 74 per cent; for the TDP it was up from 60 per cent to 100 per cent and in the case of AIMIM it was up from 71 per cent to 86 per cent.
With respect to serious criminal cases, about 34 of the 88 elected legislators or 39 per cent declared.
In the case of Congress, it was nine out of the 19 elected or 47 per cent, and two out of seven MLAs or 29 per cent for the AIMIM. The lone BJP legislator and one out of the two TDP legislators have also declared serious cases.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.