17 of Chhattisgarh’s newly elected 90 MLAs face criminal cases

Raipur: As many as 17 of the 90 MLAs in the newly elected Chhattisgarh assembly have declared criminal cases against themselves, with six facing serious charges like voluntarily causing hurt and criminal intimidation.

The BJP swept the Chhattisgarh assembly polls, winning 54 seats. The Congress, which had won 68 seats in 2018 in the state, was reduced to 35 seats, while the Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP) managed to win in one constituency.

Late chief minister Ajit Jogi founded Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J), and Bahujan Samaj Party failed to open their accounts this time.

As per a report by non-profits Chhattisgarh Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), of the 90 newly elected MLAs, 17 (about 19 per cent) have declared criminal cases against themselves in their poll affidavits.

Of them, six (7 per cent) MLAs have declared serious criminal cases against themselves, it said.

Twelve (22 per cent) of BJP’s 54 MLAs and five (14 per cent) of Congress’ 35 MLAs have declared criminal cases against themselves.

Similarly, the BJP has four (7 per cent) MLAs and the Congress has two (6 per cent) legislators who have declared serious criminal cases against themselves.

As per the report, outgoing Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel (Patan seat), Devendra Yadav (Bhilai Nagar) and Atal Shrivastav (Kota) are among the Congress winners who face criminal cases.

Similarly, former ministers Rajesh Munat (Raipur City West) and Dayaldas Baghel (Navagarh), Shakuntala Singh Portey (Pratappur), Uddheshwari Paikra (Samri), OP Choudhary (Raigarh) Vijay Sharma (Kawardha seat), Vinayak Goyal (Chitrakot-ST) and Asharam Netam (Kanker-ST) are among the newly elected MLAs from BJP who face criminal cases as per the report.

In 2018, the report said, 24 (27 per cent) of the 90 elected MLAs had declared criminal cases against themselves, with 13 (14 per cent) facing serious charges.