Madhya Pradesh politics is not yet as crowded with criminals as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, but thenumber of such elements is steadily on the rise. Three of the state ministers have criminalrecords. Call it ironical, but the current minister for jails, Arif Aqil was a prisoner in one of them adecade ago. Two decades back, accusatory fingers had been pointed towards him regarding the murder of a hockey coach. Aqilblames the charges against him on BJP (which was then in power) and its partisan politics, and the governmenthas since withdrawn many of the cases.