Out of 40 MLAs, 11 face criminal cases in poll-bound Goa: ADR report

Out of the 40 MLAs in Goa Assembly, 11 have declared criminal cases against them, which translates into 28 per cent of the total sitting MLAs, according to the Goa Election Watch report prepared by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

The report said that nine MLAs had declared serious criminal cases in their affidavits.

One MLA has declared cases related to crime against women under IPC Section 376. The report further added that party-wise, 7 out of 27 MLAs from the BJP and one out of 5 Congress MLAs have criminal cases against them.

"One (33 per cent) out of 3 MLAs from the Goa Forward Party, the sole MLA from the NCP and one (33 per cent) out of the three Independent MLAs have declared criminal cases against them in their affidavits," the report said.

Serious criminal cases have been registered against five (19 per cent) out of the 27 BJP MLAs, one (20 per cent) out of the five Congress MLAs, one (33 per cent) out of three MLAs from the Goa Forward Party, the sole NCP MLA and one (33 per cent) out of the three Independent MLAs, as per the report.

On an average, the Goa Assembly sat for 16 days per year. The longest was the 10th session in 2019, from July 15 to August 9. It had 20 sittings in total. The highest number of hours contributed to Assembly sittings were 154.01 hours in 2017 when the Assembly had 24 sittings. The lowest number of hours contributed to Assembly sittings was 35.54 hours in 2020 when the Assembly had seven sittings.


However, only 36 MLAs asked questions in the seventh Assembly session. A total of 9,442 questions were asked by these MLAs. Out of the five MLAs who asked the highest numbers of questions, four belonged to the Congress and one to the BJP, said the ADR Report.

The report analysed the criminal, financial and other background details of all the 40 sitting MLAs in Goa. The analysis is based on the affidavits submitted by the candidates prior to the 2017 Assembly elections and the by-elections conducted thereafter.-IANS