Avadh Ojha’s appeal to voters highlights the persistent criminalisation of Indian politics

An Instagram reel posted by Mukul Yadav on 1 September 2026 carries a clip attributed to educator Avadh Ojha arguing that citizens demand competent doctors, teachers and lawyers but still elect politicians with criminal backgrounds. He frames elected representatives as servants accountable to the public and says the deeper problem is a public that does not sufficiently question those in power.

The clip is political commentary, not evidence that voters knowingly choose “criminals” in every case. Its hypothetical examples of a teacher responsible for “40 murders” and “150 robberies” are rhetorical analogies, not claims about a named candidate. Likewise, the line that “545 representatives” have been installed by voters is not a precise description of the present Lok Sabha: the 2024 general election returned 543 elected MPs. The important test is therefore the broader proposition behind the rhetoric.

What the evidence shows

That broader concern is supported, though it needs careful language. Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), using election affidavits, reported that 251 of the 543 MPs elected to the 18th Lok Sabha in 2024 — 46% — had declared criminal cases against themselves. Of these, 170 MPs, or 31%, had declared serious criminal cases. A declared or pending case is not the same as a conviction, and ADR reported 27 convictions among the 251 MPs with declared cases. The distinction matters: describing every such representative simply as a “criminal” would erase the presumption of innocence and differences in case status.

The trend is not confined to one election. ADR’s analysis records the share of MPs with declared criminal cases rising from 23% in 2004 to 30% in 2009, 34% in 2014, 43% in 2019 and 46% in 2024. This establishes a recurring and worsening representation problem at the national level, rather than proving Ojha’s broader explanation that voter inattention is its basic cause.

Accountability is not only a voter-side question

India’s institutions have explicitly treated candidate selection by political parties as part of the problem. In February 2020, the Supreme Court directed political parties selecting candidates with pending criminal cases to publish details of those cases, explain why those candidates were selected, and explain why people without criminal antecedents could not be chosen. The reasons were to refer to qualifications, achievements and merit rather than mere electoral “winnability”. The Election Commission has incorporated these directions into its election instructions and requires candidates and parties to publicise criminal antecedents.

This changes the meaning of the reel’s argument. Voter scrutiny matters, but the available evidence does not justify assigning the persistence of criminalisation primarily to an unaware electorate. Candidate supply is filtered by political parties; voters choose among the candidates actually nominated; criminal cases vary greatly in seriousness and status; and a pending case does not establish guilt. Institutional disclosure rules are designed to improve voter information, but disclosure by itself does not demonstrate why particular candidates win.

Why it matters

The reel’s durable public-interest point is the democratic principle that elected representatives are accountable to citizens. The independently established issue is more specific: nearly half of the MPs elected in 2024 declared criminal cases, the share has risen over two decades, and the Supreme Court and Election Commission have imposed transparency obligations on parties precisely because candidate selection with criminal antecedents has become a systemic electoral concern.

What cannot be concluded from this clip or the cited data is that voters alone caused that trend, that all MPs with pending cases are guilty, or that investigative agencies are used against people merely for questioning leaders. The clip’s references to the ED and CBI are rhetorical and provide no case-specific evidence for that implication.