The new Punjab Assembly will have 75% MLAs who are crorepatis, with 1/3rd of them with assets above Rs 5 crore.
This was revealed in a report on newly elected MLAs by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and the Punjab Election Watch (PEW).
Further, there has been more than three-fold increase in the elected MLAs with the criminal records as compared to strength of such MLAs in the previous House of 2017.
The report says that there are six MLAs who are facing serious criminal cases including one is booked for murder, two with attempt to murder cases against them, and three with cases related to crimes against women.
Jaskirat Singh of ADR and Parwinder Singh Kitna of PEW, while releasing this report in Jalandhar on Monday, said that 33.33% MLAs have assets of more than Rs 5 crore, 23.08% between Rs 2 crore to 5 crore, 27.35% have assets between Rs 50 lakh to Rs 2 crore, 11.97% between Rs 10 lakh to Rs 50 lakh and 4.27% with assets less that Rs 10 lakh.
Both said 63 (69%) out of 92 of AAP MLAs are crorepartis, 17 (94%) out of 18 from Congress are crorepatis and 3 (100%) from SAD are in this category and there also 2 (100%) from BJP, 1 (100%) from BSP and 1 (100%) Independent.
Also the average of assets per winning candidates in the Punjab Assembly polls this year is Rs 10.45 crore. The average of assets per MLA in the 2017 Punjab Assembly election was Rs 11.78 crore.
In party-wise breakup, the average assets per winning candidates for 92 AAP winning candidates is Rs 7.52 crore, which was 6.25 crore in 2017, for 18 Congress winners is Rs 22.73 crore, which was Rs 14. 88 crore in 2017.
Further, three SAD winning candidates have average assets of Rs 15.03 crore, which was Rs 9.80 crores in 2017, and 2 BJP winning candidates have average assets worth Rs 2.49 crores. The lone Independent MLA has assets of Rs 69.75 crore. There were 81% crorepati MLAs in the House in 2017.
Among the top richest MLAs this time, five are from Congress party, four from AAP and one is Independent. Mohali MLA Kulwant Singh is the richest with Rs 238 crore assets followed by Congress MLA from Kapurthala, Rana Gurjit Singh, with Rs 125 crore assets and AAP’s Sunam MLA Aman Arora with Rs 95 crore assets.
All the 10 MLAs with the lowest assets are from AAP with Narinderpal Singh Sawan (30) from Fazilka and Narinder Kaur Bharaj (27) from Sangur having just Rs 18,370 and Rs 24,409 assets, respectively.
Labh Singh Ugoke is at third number with Rs 3.65 lakh assests. Ugoke defeated Congress CM candidate and former CM Charanjit Singh Channi from Badhaur constituency.
There are 25 MLAs who were re-elected in 2022 and their average assets are Rs 17.41 crore. The growth in average assets of re-elected MLAs is Rs 34.84 lakh, which is 2% growth compared to the average assets of re-elected MLAs in 2017 being Rs 17.07 crore.
Only five re-elected MLAs have shown decrease in income between 8% to 41%, while 20 MLAs have shown an increase in income between 2% to 2,954% between 2017 to 2022. Prof. Baljinder Kaur’s income, which witnessed highest increase, was Rs 3.65 lakh in 2017 which is now 1.11 crore and MLA’s salary is the main source of this income. The lowest increase was recorded by Gurmeet Singh Hayer, the AAP MLA from Barnala, whose assets were Rs 43 lakh in 2017 and now that figure is Rs 44 lakh.
As far as criminal cases are concerned, in 2017 Vidhan Sabha there were only 16 (14%) MLAs with the criminal cases but this time this number is 58 MLAs — almost 50% of the winning candidates are involved in criminal cases which is more than three times then the previous House.
The report said that party-wise winning candidates with criminal cases included 52 (57%) MLAs out of 92 elected from Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), 3 (17%) out of 18 winning candidates from Congress, 2 (67%) out of 3 winning candidates from SAD and 1 (50%) out of 2 winning candidates from BJP.
Party-wise winning candidates with serious criminal cases list has 23 (25%) from AAP out of 92, 2 (11%) out of 18 winning candidates from Congress and 2 (67%) out of 3 winning candidates from SAD.
Meanwhile, there now there are 11.1% women MLAs in the Assembly.