Gender, wealth, experience: What the assembly polls reveal about our MLA preferences
India Today
What do the trends in the recently concluded Assembly elections in the five states of UP, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa and Punjab reveal about our voters? Let's have a look.
In the recently-concluded high voltage assembly elections in five states, the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur, and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) claimed Punjab with a resounding victory. India Today's Data Intelligence Unit (DIU) looked at the profiles of the newly elected assemblies.
Of the 690 newly-elected MLAs from the five states, 76 or 11 per cent are women. This is an uptick as compared to the 2017 assembly polls when only 55 or about eight per cent of women participants entered the legislative assembly. This year, women's overall participation was also higher as more women (760) contested as compared to in 2017, when 655 women candidates were in the fray.
Punjab observed the highest jump, where the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP decimated the opposition by winning a massive 92 of the 117 assembly seats. Here, 13 women candidates won and entered the state assembly as compared to just six in the 2017 polls.
Aside from more women entering the house this time, the number of wealthy candidates who were elected has also increased. Candidates with more than one crore in net assets have risen from 518 (75 per cent) in 2017 to 579 (84 per cent) in 2022. Barring Punjab, the average assets of the winning candidates have also seen a jump.
The winning MLAs of Punjab are poorer than their predecessors, with their average assets reduced marginally to Rs. 10.5 crores compared to Rs. 11.8 crores in 2017. On the other hand, the average assets of newly elected members of the Goa assembly have almost doubled to Rs. 20 crores from Rs. 10.9 crores in 2017.
Along with money comes muscle power. Looking at the data on the criminal backgrounds of the newly elected representatives, the number of tainted members has increased compared to the previous assembly. Nearly every second MLA elected has declared a criminal case against them. Overall, the number of tainted members has grown to 312 (45 per cent) out of 690. It was 196 (28.4 per cent) in 2017.
State-wise, data shows that Manipur has seen a considerable jump in sending such members to the house - the number rose to 14 in 2022 from a mere two in 2017. It is followed by Punjab, where the number of tainted legislators increased from 16 in 2017 to 58 in 2022.
