Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The performance of elected representatives in the legislature is a crucial indicator of the functioning of a democracy. As the largest democracy in the world with a federal structure, India’s national parliamentarians and state legislators are responsible for framing the country’s laws. Recent studies have found nearly a third of Indian legislators at state and national level facing criminal enquiries. This has prompted advocacy from citizen groups demanding enactment of policies to debar candidates with criminal records from contesting elections. However, there is little research that explores the effect of criminality on the performance of legislators in India, particularly at the state level. Additionally, there is no longitudinal study analyzing whether this association has increased, reduced, or sustained over time at either the state or national level.

This paper combines datasets for years 2004 to 2018 (covering three election terms) regarding performance (measured through debates, questions, attendance etc.) of representatives (national and state level) obtained from respective legislature websites; demographic characteristics including criminal, financial, and educational records from candidates’ self-declared affidavits collated by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR); and voter’s perception about representative’s performance from a nationally representative 2014 ADR-Daksh survey.

I use multivariate regression modeling to analyze the association of criminal record with the representatives’ performance. I further compare the findings from the national level with those at the state level. Finally, I observe the longitudinal trend of effect of crime on legislators’ performance over three legislative terms, and conclude by discussing the policy implications of our analysis.