Money, muscle fare well in assembly elections

Money and muscle power seem to have fared better in the recently held elections as voters have sent a staggering 50 per cent of crorepatis and over 36 per cent of candidates with criminal background to the three state assemblies.An analysis by National Election Watch (NEW) shows the number of legislators, who have assets of over a crore, voted to power in Maharashtra is 184 or 63.89 per cent of the 288-seat house. In 2004, there were 108 crorepati MLAs.Voters elected 35 crorepatis or 58.33 per cent to the 60-seat house in Haryana this time. There were 47 millionaires in the 2005 assembly in Haryana and 17 such MLAs in Arunachal Pradesh in 2004. -PTI