Half of Modi's new ministers face criminal cases, majority are crorepatis
Of the total Council of Ministers, 20 or 31 per cent have declared criminal cases against themselves, while 11 ministers or 17 per cent are facing serious criminal cases.
Almost half of the 21 new faces inducted into Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Council of Ministers have declared criminal cases against them, while a majority are crorepatis with their average assets pegged at Rs 18.48 crore.
An analysis of the criminal and financial backgrounds of the 66-member Council of Ministers by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) has revealed that 59 of them, or 92 per cent, are crorepatis.
Among the newly inducted ministers, the highest increase in assets was registered in the case of Mahesh Sharma from Gautam Budh Nagar, whose worth rose from Rs 15.85 crore in 2009 to Rs 47.37 crore this year.
Eight of the new ministers have declared criminal cases against themselves and four are facing serious criminal cases.
Of the total Council of Ministers, 20 or 31 per cent have declared criminal cases against themselves, while 11 ministers or 17 per cent are facing serious criminal cases like attempted murder, inciting communal disharmony and electoral violations.
ADR analysed data from the election affidavits of 64 ministers and the details of Union ministers Suresh Prabhu and Birender Singh were not included as they are not members of either House of Parliament.
The inclusion of Ramshankar Katheria from Agra constituency in the Council of Ministers led to a controversy on Monday as Congress slammed the BJP on the issue of the tainted minister. Katheria has declared a case of attempted murder against him. According to his affidavit, he is also facing cases related to promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion and race and committing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony.
Similarly, Giriraj Singh of Nawada constituency declared a case related to undue influence during an election (Section 171F of the IPC). As far as the financial background of the ministers is concerned, the average assets of the new ministers were worth Rs 18.48 crore.
Yalamanchili Satyanarayana Chowdary, a Rajya Sabha member from Andhra Pradesh, declared the highest total assets of Rs189.69 crore, followed by Jayant Sinha from Hazaribagh constituency with assets of Rs 55.67 crore and Mahesh Sharma from Gautam Budh Nagar with total assets of Rs 47.37 crore.
On the other hand, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti from Fatehpur declared the lowest total assets of Rs 37.63 lakh. Five members of the council of ministers had declared assets of less than Rs 1 crore. Seven members of the council of ministers have total assets worth over Rs 30 crore, including Arun Jaitley (Rs 113 crore) and Harsimrat Kaur Badal (Rs 108 crore).
The NDA government strongly defended the expansion of the council of ministers in the wake of taint charges raised against some ministers by the Congress, saying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had chosen his team members after checking their credentials and facts related to each one of them.
Reacting sharply to Congress's attack on Modi, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that all the charges were baseless.
"During the UPA government, the prime minister never had the last word in the formation of the cabinet or its expansion. In the NDA, it is a different trend. The last word is exclusively that of the prime minister," he said.
Cong questions PM on 'criminal' ministers
The Congress on Monday questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pre-poll stand on cleaning up parliament of tainted lawmakers and alleged that the number of shady members in his council of ministers had gone up.
"The number of tainted ministers in the cabinet has gone up to 15 or 16 of the total 66," Congress communication department chief Ajay Maken said.
"You talk of cleaning Parliament of criminals, but you go on inducting tainted ministers," he said, adding Modi should have kept tainted leaders out as cabinet formation is his prerogative.
A study of 64 of the 66 cabinet ministers done by anti-graft NGO Association for Democratic Reforms indicated that 20 of them had declared criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits to the Election Commission.
Maken pressed for the resignation of Minister of State for Science and Technology Y.S. Chowdary and produced bank documents that he claimed showed Chowdary's company had defaulted on the repayment of a loan of Rs 317.6 crore from the Central Bank of India.
"Did you make him a minister to save him from default? The Modi government should come clean on it and the minister should resign," Maken said.
He further alleged that Minister of State for HRD Ram Shankar Katheria has a record of 23 cases against him in the affidavit he filed with the Election Commission. "Perhaps, no other MP has such a bulky criminal record," he said.
- By Amit Agnihotri in New Delhi