BENGALURU: With the newly elected BBMP councillors all set to take oath on Friday, the Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy has found that 93 councillors have educational qualifications of SSLC or below, while 23 have criminal records.
Through its initiative ‘Open Works,’ Janaagraha has compiled data from the affidavits declared by the candidates while filing nominations. However, the NGO was not able to get data of all the 198 councillors.
According to a release from Janaagraha, the affidavits for four candidates were not available while 13 others had incomplete information.
Radhamma Venkatesh (Congress) , Rajeshwari Cholaraj (BJP) , K Somashekar (BJP) and Shakeel Ahmed (Congress) have studied till Class 4. Gangamma (JD-S) has studied till Class 6 and Fareeda, Chandrappa, Mahadevamma Nagaraj, all from Congress, and Sharada (BJP) have studied till Class 7.
Of the 23 members with criminal records, some have serious cases like murder and dowry harassment registered against them. Those with murder charges include Arif Pasha (JD-S), Chandrappa (Congress) and K Mahesh Babu (BJP). Congress’s Keshav Murthy has a dowry harassment case against him.
On a positive note, the NGO found 69 councillors under 40 years. Mahalakshmi, BJP councillor from Hosahalli ward in Vijaynagar, is the youngest at 21 years.