Odisha Election Watch, a voluntary organization, on Wednesday told media here that 52 MLAs (35 per cent) out of the total 147 legislators of the state have declared pending criminal cases against them.

Discussion on criminalization in politics came to the fore after the Supreme Court pointed out the increasing criminalization in politics and asked the Centre to come up with a solution to the problem. The Centre on Tuesday agreed to set up special fast-track courts to deal with the criminal cases pending against MLAs and MPs.

The organization said 41 f the total legislators have declared serious criminal cases in their affidavits submitted before the election officers during the general election in 2014. Among the political parties, BJD has the maximum number of MLAs with criminal cases (32) followed by Congress (nine MLAs) and BJP (eight MLAs).

The affidavit data analyzed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) said three of the total 21 Lok Sabha members from Odisha declared criminal cases pending against them. Two members belong to BJD and one from BJP.

Similarly, two persons of the 10 Rajya Sabha members from the state have declared criminal cases pending against them. The data shows that criminal cases are pending against most of the political parties.