Four out of every ten chief ministers in the country have declared criminal cases against themselves, according to a new report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch.
The analysis, which studied the self-sworn affidavits of all 30 sitting chief ministers from state Assemblies and Union Territories, found that 12 chief ministers (40%) face criminal cases, while 10 (33%) are accused in serious offences such as attempt to murder, kidnapping, bribery and criminal intimidation.
Among them, Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy tops the list with 89 declared cases, followed by Tamil Nadu’s M K Stalin with 47 cases. Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu has 19 cases, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah 13 cases, and Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren 5 cases. Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis and Himachal Pradesh CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu declared four cases each, while Kerala’s Pinarayi Vijayan declared two and Punjab’s Bhagwant Mann one.
The findings come at a politically charged time, with the Centre recently introducing three bills in Parliament seeking the automatic removal of the Prime Minister, chief ministers and ministers if they remain in custody for 30 days or more on charges punishable with at least five years in jail.
The government has pitched the move as a step to check the criminalisation of politics, but the opposition has slammed it as a “draconian” attempt to destabilise non-BJP ruled states. Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi said on X, “Best way to destabilise opposition is to unleash biased central agencies to arrest opposition CMs and, despite being unable to defeat them electorally, remove them by arbitrary arrests.”
The ADR report mentioned that the affidavits analysed were filed before the leaders contested their last elections.
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