New Delhi: Among the 58 ministers, who were sworn-in as members of the Union Council of Ministers on Thursday, at least 22 (or 39%) have declared criminal cases against them according to their self-sworn affidavits filed at the time of election, says an Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) report.
In comparison, of the 64 ministers analysed by the ADR, 20 (or 31%) had declared criminal cases against them in the 2014 Union Council of Ministers.
While 16 ministers in the newly formed Cabinet have against them serious criminal cases, including charges of attempt to murder, causing communal disharmony and electoral violations, 11 ministers had such charges against them in the previous cabinet.
Data for Ram Vilas Paswan and former foreign secretary S Jaishankar is not available as both of them are not part of any of the houses of Parliament, at present. Therefore, only 56 ministers were analysed.
According to the report, ministers with cases related to causing communal disharmony include Amit Shah, Giriraj Singh, Pratap Chandra Sarangi, Babul Supriyo, Nityanand Rai and Pralhad Joshi.
On the other hand, 51 of the 56 ministers analysed are crorepatis with Minister for Food Processing Industries and Shiromani Akali Dal leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal having the highest assets worth over Rs 217 crore.
Badal also has the highest liabilities at Rs 95 crore. In effect, 91% of all the Cabinet ministers in 2019 are crorepatis.
The figure has seen a marginal decline from 92% in 2014. Other than Badal, the list of ministers with high assets include, Piyush Goyal at Rs 95 crore, Rao Inderjit Singh at Rs 42 crore, Amit Shah at Rs 40 crore and Krishan Pal Gurjar at Rs 36 crore.
In contrast to this, Balasore MP Pratap Chandra Sarangi has the lowest total assets at just over Rs 13 lakh, according to his self-sworn election affidavit.
Others with low assets are Kailash Chaudhary at Rs 24 lakh, V Muraleedharan at Rs 27 lakh, Rameshwar Teli at Rs 43 Lakh and Debasree Choudhuri at Rs 61 lakh.
The average assets of the ministers have gone up from Rs 14.25 crore in 2014 to Rs 14.72 crore in 2019.
Moreover, 15 of the total 56 ministers are post-graduates, four are doctorates, 12 have described themselves as graduate professionals, 16 are graduates, six are 12th pass, two are 10th pass and one has a diploma, the report revealed.
Minister for Women and Child Development and Minister of Textiles Smriti Irani, who was targeted by the opposition for alleged discrepancy in her election affidavit, has mentioned her educational qualification as 12th pass.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given post-graduate as his highest qualification, whereas the new Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah is 12th pass, according to his affidavit.
Also, 28 of the 56 ministers are over 60 years of age, while 17 of them are aged between 51-60 years and 11 others are in the age bracket of 41-50 years.
Meanwhile, 11 ministers are Rajya Sabha MPs, while the rest are directly elected to the Lok Sabha.
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