30 per cent of Narendra Modi's ministers face criminal charges

NEW DELHI: Forty of the 44 ministers in the Modi government are crorepatis with the wealthiest being finance minister Arun Jaitley. About 30 per cent of the ministers have criminal cases pending against them.

The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) analyzed self-sworn affidavits of 44 of the 46 ministers including PM Narendra Modi. The details of two ministers -Prakash Javadekar and Nirmala Sitharaman -were not analyzed as they are not members of either house.

Of the 44 ministers, 13 (30 per cent) ministers have declared criminal cases against them while eight or 18 per cent face serious criminal charges including cases related to attempt to murder, communal disharmony, kidnapping, electoral violations against themselves.

Cabinet minister Uma Bharti has the ignominy of a case related to attempt to murder pending against her besides another case of communal disharmony and election violations while rural development minister Gopinath Munde has a case of kidnapping pending against him.

An overwhelming 91 per cent or 40 of the 44 ministers are crorepatis with the average asset of Rs 13.47 crore. Among the wealthiest are none other than finance minister Jaitley, followed by food processing minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Gopinath Munde, Maneka Gandhi and Piyush Goyal.

The ministers with the lowest assets include Mansukhbhai Dhanjibhai Vasava at Rs 65 lakh, Thaavarchand Gehlot with Rs 86 lakh and Sudarshan Bhagat with Rs 90 lakh worth of assets followed by Ram Vilas Paswan (Rs 96 lakh) and Sanjeev Kumar Balyan (Rs 1 crore).

While 18 per cent or eight of the ministers have declared they have passed school, 35 or 80 per cent have declared education qualification of graduate or above. About 20 per cent of the ministers have declared their age to be between 31 to 50 years while 75 per cent or 33 are aged between 51 to 70 years. Only two ministers are above 70 years of age.

Ministers with highest assets

Arun Jaitley: Rs 113 crore

Harsimrat Kaur Badal: Rs 108 crore

Gopinath Munde: Rs 38 crore

Maneka Gandhi: Rs 37 crore

Piyush Goyal: Rs 30 crore