BHUBANESWAR: Around 13 per cent (pc) newly elected Zilla Parishad (ZP) members in Odisha are crorepatis and 11 pc have criminal cases against them, revealed the Odisha Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) report released on Tuesday.
As per the data shared by the two agencies in their report on assets, criminal cases and educational qualification of ZP members based on the affidavits of 726 elected candidates, 95 are crorepatis with 90 pc of them being from ruling BJD.
Three BJD members - Rebati Nayak, Gitarani Malik and Kunti Pradhan -- have declared their assets to be worth Rs 18.6 crore, Rs 17.06 crore and Rs 10.21 crore, respectively. Similarly, three ZP members from BJP and two from Congress have also declared assets of more than Rs 1 crore in their affidavits. The average value of assets of ZP members in Odisha is Rs 56.60 lakh.
Similarly, 82 ZP members - around 11 pc - have declared criminal cases pending against themselves. Of them, 65 are facing serious criminal charges including cases related to attempt to murder and crimes against women, the report revealed. A total 15 ZP members have cases of attempt to murder against them, while 12 are facing cases related to crimes against women.
Out of 661 ZP members analysed from ruling BJD, 66 (around 10 pc) have declared criminal cases while six (16 pc) of 37 ZP members from BJP and seven (32 pc) out of 22 elected members of Congress are facing similar charges.
Apart from assets and criminal records, 451 members have declared their educational qualification to be between Class V and XII pass, while 256 (35 pc) completed their graduation and pursued higher degrees. Six ZP members have not declared their educational qualification, while six are just literate.
The ADR has stated that affidavits of 726 out of 851 winning ZP candidates could be analysed as the rest were not available or uploaded on the website at the time of making the report.