Tripura Assembly election results: 29 percent BJP MLAs in state face criminal charges, 37 percent are crorepati

New Delhi: The BJP has done it in abundance in Tripura - be it the number of seats or the number of candidates with serious criminal cases and the worth of assets, an analysis of the self-sworn affidavits of the newly-elected legislators showed on Sunday. As many as 10 (29 percent) out of 35 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs face criminal charges. Of these 10, eight face serious criminal cases such as attempt to murder or causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty, among other charges. [caption id=“attachment_4375207” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AFP[/caption] In comparison, one out of 16 MLAs of CPM (6 percent) and one out of eight MLAs of Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (13 percent) have declared serious criminal cases against them, an analysis by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) showed. Overall, there has been a 100 percent rise in the number of legislators with criminal cases as compared to 2013 assembly elections. In 2013, six out of 60 MLAs (10 percent) had declared criminal cases against them. In 2018, the percentage has risen to 20 percent (12 out of 59 MLAs). Also, there were five out of 60 (8 percent) MLAs with serious criminal charges against them in 2013, which has now risen to 10 MLAs out of 59 or 17 per cent. In terms of wealth, 15 out of the 59 newly-elected MLAs are crorepaties (those with declared assets worth one crore rupees or more). In 2013, the number of crorepati (multi-millionaire) candidates was eight or 13 percent. Also, 13 of the 35 BJP MLAs (37 percent), one out of 16 (6 percent) from Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and one out of eight (13 percent) MLAs from IPFT have declared assets valued more than one crore rupees. The top three MLAs with highest assets are from the BJP. They are Biplab Kumar Ghosh, Pranajit Singha Roy (both have total assets worth more than Rs 5 crore) and Dilip Sarkar (assets worth more than Rs 4 crore).