Bhubaneswar, May 17: Out of 726 Zilla parishad (ZP) members 82 members have declared criminal cases against themselves, according to an analysis made by Odisha Election Watch (OEW) and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
OEW and ADR have analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 726 out of 851 Zilla Parishad Members in the Odisha Panchayat Elections 2022. The rest of the affidavits were not analysed as they were not available or uploaded on the website at the time of making this report.
As per the analysis 65 zilla parishad members have declared serious criminal cases including cases related to an attempt to murder and crimes against women. The report said 15 zilla parishad members have declared cases of attempt to murder and 12 members have declared cases related to crimes against women.
As many as 66 out of 661 zilla parishad members from BJD, 6 out of 37 zilla parishad members from BJP, 7 out of 22 zilla parishad members from INC, one out of 3 zilla parishad members from JMM, one of 1 zilla parishad member from CPI(M) and one out of 2 Independent zilla parishad members have declared criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits.
Party wise 53 out of 661 zilla parishad members from BJD, 4 out of 37 zilla parishad members from BJP, 6 out of 22 zilla parishad members from Congress, 1 out of 3 zilla parishad members from JMM and 1 out of 2 Independent zilla parishad members have declared serious criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits.
Out of the 726 Zilla Parishad members 95 are crorepatis. Party while the BJD has 90 crorepatis out 661 zilla Parishad members, three BJP out of its 37 BJP members and two out of 22 Congress members have declared assets worth more than Rs one crore.
The average assets per Zilla Parishad member in the Odisha Zilla Parishad election 2022 is Rs 56.60 lakh. Party wise average assets for 661 Zilla Parishad members of BJD is Rs 58 lakh, 37 BJP members is Rs 48.61 lakh, 22 Congress members is Rs 37.25 lakh and for three JMM members is Rs 16.08 lakh.
The three top Zilla Parisad Members with high assets are— Rebati Nayak (BJD) of Soro zone 1 (Rs 18 crore, ) Gitarani Mallik (BJD) of Bhadrak Zone 2 (Rs 17 crore ) and Kunti. Pradhan (BJD) of Tangarapalli zone in Sundergarh district (Rs 10 crore.). Three Zilla Parishad members with low assets are —Rina Behera (BJD) Chilika-2 zone ( zero assets), Kuni Nimala (Cong) Gunnupuri-2 zone (Rs 2,000) and Biswajit Pradhan (BJD) Tangi-chowdwarzone, Cuttack (Rs 5,000). As many as 451 zilla parishad members have declared their educational qualification to be between 5th pass and 12th pass, while 256 members have declared having an educational qualification of graduate and above.
Six zilla parishad members are Diploma holders. 7 zilla parishad members have declared themselves to be just literate and 6 zilla parishad members have not given their educational qualifications. Out of 726 zilla parishad members analysed, 385 zilla parishad members are women.
