The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) had the largest number of under-matriculate MLAs in the State Legislative Assembly since 1957, while the Kerala Congress (KC) (all factions combined) topped the list of parties having the highest number of graduates and postgraduates.
The data on the educational qualification of elected members sourced from the Legislature Secretariat revealed that the CPI(M) was at second position in the list of under-matriculate members (25.07 per cent), while the Kerala Congress had the least number of MLAs under this category (3.03 per cent).
Interestingly, the size of the under-matriculates had shrunk considerably over these decades. It has now come down to four per cent from 36 per cent in the 1970’s and 22 per cent in the subsequent decade. Among the major parties, the Congress had 18.55 per cent graduates, 6.79 per cent post-graduates, and 33.26 per cent law graduates while the corresponding figures for the CPI(M) were 17.87, 2.88 and 17.87.
The CPI enjoyed a better track record in sending members with better educational qualification compared to the CPI(M). It had 17.12 per cent graduates, 6.31 per cent postgraduates, and 25.68 per cent law graduates as MLAs. The occupation-wise distribution of members from 1957 onwards showed that social activists/ political workers had 39.56 per cent representation in the Assembly followed by lawyers (20.83 per cent) and trade unionists (10.35 per cent).
The CPI(M) had the highest number of MLAs, who had declared their profession as full-time social activism/ social worker (56.90 per cent). For the Congress, lawyers and full-time politicians formed the largest group (64.51 per cent). Of the 47 businessmen who made it to the Assembly till 2006, 35 were IUML candidates.
