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More than 40 percent of the MPs in the new Indian parliament face criminal charges, some as serious as murder and rape, and the list goes on, a group of electoral reform said Saturday.
A member of parliament for the opposition party. is struggling with 204 cases, including manslaughter and theft, said the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR).
At least 233 of the 543 members appointed to the winning seats on Thursday are facing criminal charges, according to ADR, whose chief returning officer, Anil Verma, said there is a "worrying trend" in parliament that "is bad for democracy".
ADR said it had studied the records of 539 of the winners and found that the number of people in the subject of a criminal case was the highest since the beginning of his studies in 2004
According to the report, 116 of the 30 deputies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been brought to justice, including one for terrorism.
Twenty-nine of the 52 cong Members face cases. Dean Kuriakose of Idukki, in the state of Kerala, faces 204 criminal cases
. According to ADR, the number of lawmakers facing serious criminal cases has more than doubled in a decade – including 11 murder cases, 30 counts of indictment and three accused of rape.
Indian laws prohibit persons from participating in an election if they have been convicted of crimes punishable by a term of imprisonment of two years or more, with few exceptions, depending on the crime committed.
Candidates who come to a position for the first time are allowed to have a conviction.
None of the 185 legislators of the previous legislature who were the subject of criminal proceedings was convicted.
Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, a newly elected nationalist Hindu nationalist non-nationalist, member of the newly elected BJP, faces a terrorism charge for the 2008 attack perpetrated by a mosque that killed six people . She denies the charges and claims to have been criticized by a previous congressional government.
The parties often denounce the accusations against their candidates saying that they were victims of political vendettas.
This year, the Indian electoral commission made the publication of candidates mandatory. details of their criminal records during the campaign period
ADR campaigns to hold Indian politics accountable and asked the Supreme Court to clbadify their criminal, educational and financial records.
Verma said the political clbad was trying to avoid reforms. But he added: "We will continue to legally fight this threat and demand that the courts prohibit the appearance of candidates found criminally liable".
ja / tw / amz
© Agence France-Presse
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