Narendra Modi government 2.0: 51 crorepati ministers, 22 face criminal cases, says ADR

In the criminal, financial, and other background analysis done by the election watchdog, Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), of the 58 ministers in the newly-elected Narendra Modi government, 51 ministers are crorepatis and 22 have declared criminal cases against themselves. The ADR released the findings after analysing affidavits of 56 of the 58 ministers, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, from the 17th Lok Sabha and the current Rajya Sabha. 

The details of Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan, who is the minister of consumer affairs, food and public distribution, and External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar were not analysed as they are not members of either house, the ADR said.

Out of the 56 ministers analysed, 51 (91 per cent) are crorepatis and the average assets per minister is Rs 14.72 crore. A total of four ministers--Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Piyush Goyal, Rao Inderjit Singh and Amit Shah--have declared more than Rs 40 crores worth of assets, the ADR said. Another five ministers--Pratap Chandra Sarangi, Kailash Choudhary, V. Muraleedharan, Rameswar Teli, and Debasree Chaudhuri--have declared assets less than Rs 1 crore.

A total of 16 Ministers have declared liabilities of Rs 1 crore and above. Out of these 16 Ministers, 5 have declared liabilities of Rs 10 crores and above, the ADR said.

With respect to ministers with criminal cases, a total of 22 (39 per cent) ministers have declared criminal cases against themselves, 16 (29 per cent) ministers have declared serious criminal cases including cases related to attempt to murder, communal disharmony, electoral violations etc., and V Muraleedharan from Maharashtra, Rajya Sabha Member of BJP has declared a case related to attempt to murder, the ADR said.

As many as 8 (14 per cent) ministers have declared their educational qualification to be between 10th and 12th standard, 47 (84 per cent) ministers have declared having an educational qualification of graduate or above and one minister is holding a Diploma.

Of the 56 ministers, 11 (20 per cent) ministers have declared their age to be between 41 to 50 years while 45 (80 per cent) ministers have declared their age to be between 51 to 70 years. There are 6 (11 per cent) women ministers, the ADR said.

When compared with the data from the 2014 Lok Sabha, the number of ministers with criminal cases has risen by eight percentage points, while the count of those with serious criminal cases has increased by 12 percentage points, it said.

Incidentally, the number of crorepati ministers have seen a fall with 59 ministers being crorepatis in 2014.