Pappu Yadav has served in India’s Lok Sabha, the lower house of the country’s Parliament for close to 25 years. He’s faced serious criminal accusations for almost as long. Yadav, who represents a constituency in the state of Bihar, has 41 pending cases against him. He was convicted of murder in 2008 and received a life sentence, only to be acquitted in 2013. And in 2021, he was arrested in connection with a 32-year-old kidnapping case. Yadav is not alone.
Nishith Prakash, a professor of public policy and economics at Northeastern University, says the long-serving politician is one of many politicians in India who have managed to bend or break the law for their own gain. Another politician, Anant Singh, a four-time elected member of the legislative assembly from Bihar, faces upwards of 38 criminal cases, including seven murders, 11 attempts to murder and four kidnappings. “They are getting elected, and over time the number has only been going up,” Prakash says. “In some states, it could be as high as almost 40% of people who are representing the state have some kind of a criminal accusation.”
