Samajwadi Party Has Most MPs With Criminal Charges

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SP Leads Pack Of Most MPs With Criminal Charges
17 May 2009, 0210 hrs IST, TNN

LUCKNOW: With total 29 candidates who have faced criminal cases, the band of 80 politicians who would represent the premier political state of
Uttar Pradesh in the Parliament will have at least two who can only sign their names and two who are barely 29-year-old.

On the brighter side, this time there will be only eight candidates who have faced criminal cases for heinous crimes as compared to 13 in 2004. Not only this, over half the MPs (41) are 40 years of age or below. While five of them have done their doctorates, 12 are post graduates and 30 graduates.

Leading the list of MPs who have faced criminals cases, is the Samajwadi Party with 11 such MPs followed by Congress Party with eight and Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) with seven. Both Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) have two members each who have faced police cases.

On the age front, of the 80 MPs elected, at least five are 70 years or more with BSP's Shaifq-ur-Rehman Barg leading the pack at 76 followed by BJP's Murli Manohar Joshi from Varanasi and Lalji Tondon from Lucknow at 73 years of age. On the other extreme are Sarika (Haathras) from RLD and Feroz Varun Gandhi (Pilibhit) from BJP at 29 years of age. While 50 of the MPs are in their 50s, at least nine are in their 60s.

The two MPs who can only sign their names and hence qualify the mark to be called as literate hail from Muzzafarnagar and Robertsganj - Qadir Rana and Pakauri Lal - both representing the BSP. The Congress happens to bag the most educated of the lot with one retired IAS (PL Punia from Barabanki) and at least five who have had their education in the best of the institutions in India and even abroad. Right from Jatin Prasad and Salman Khursheed to Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi.

While Jatin has completed his graduation from St Stephens in New Delhi, the remaining trio have completed their higher education in institutes like Oxford and Harvard. Among the rest are Ajit Singh of RLD from Baghpat who has his engineering degree from the US and BJP's Varun Feroz Gandhi from Pilibhit who pursued his bachelors from London university.
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