NEW DELHI: Twenty two riot cases qualified Devendra Fadnavis to take over as the first BJP chief minister of Maharashtra. Backed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah, Fadnavis sailed through to the post beating all other contenders, including heavyweight Minister Nitin Gadkari who of course publicly denied having any interest in leaving Delhi for Mumbai.

The swearing in will take place on Friday.

IndiaSpend, an online data journalism initiative with senior journalists on board, has analysed data to find that this Assembly has set a new record with 165 of the 288 legislators having criminal cases against them. This is a whopping 57%, an increase from the 46% in 2004 and 52% in 2009.

Of these 165 MLAs, nearly 70% according to IndiaSpend have serious criminal charges against them which include murder, attempt to murder, forgery and rioting. And in the list of crimes rioting is on top with at least 81 legislators charged with this grave crime, followed by hurt/assault on public servant (50) and cheating (31).

The BJP is the largest party with 122 seats in this Assembly and also with the highest number of legislators--74 that constitutes 60% of its strength in the Assembly-- with criminal charges. it has the highest number of MLAs--53-- facing serious criminal charges. Shiv Sena is next with 48 of its 63 legislators---a good 76%--- facing criminal charges.

In fact Maharashtra also has the richest Assembly according to the Association of Democratic Reforms that in an analysis reports that 253 of the 288 legislators from the state have declared assets of more than Rs 1 crore, 80 are in the Rs 10 crore plus figure and ten have assets exceeding Rs 50 crores. are in the crore-and-above club.

ADR’s analysis also shows that the average assets of MLAs have increased from Rs 4.99 crore in the 2009 assembly elections to Rs 10.87 crore in the 2014 assembly elections. Ajit Ranade, state coordinator of ADR, said all data is based on affidavits filed by the candidates. "A large majority of people in Maharashtra remain poor, but the people's representatives only seem to be getting richer. We do not mean to say that the people's representatives need to be poor, but we observed that the average wealth of candidates has doubled compared to the last assembly elections. Another important pattern that emerges from the data analyzed is that the winner or second runner-up is mostly the richest candidate who has filed his/her nomination from the constituency," he said.

"While 95% of NCP MLAs are crorepatis, 85% are from the BJP. There does not seem to be much of a difference between party-wise percentages as most are on the higher end," Ranade added.

Meanwhile the Shiv Sena is trying to reach out to the BJP through its mouthpiece Saamna. It has singled out the Prime Minister whom it was attacking through the campaign, for praise in changing the “cultural face” of India by stopping Iftar parties and holding Diwali milans instead.

“Congress used to celebrate Iftar as if it was a national festival. It was more about vote bank politics than actual love for Muslims. This vote bank politics is over because of Mr. Modi,” the editorial said.