Know your Neta: 55/57 newly-elected Rajya Sabha MPs are crorepatis, 13 charged in criminal cases

At the end of the month, if you’re counting the pennies in your wallet, here’s something that will definitely not make you feel better. Out of 57 newly-elected Rajya Sabha MPs, 55 are crorepatis. Congress’ Praful Patel is the richest with Rs 252.08 crore worth of declared assets. Following Patel’s lead are lawyers Kapil Sibal (Congress) with Rs 212.53 crore and Satish Chandra (BSP) with Rs 193 crore.

The numbers crunched by Association for Democratic Rights  (ADR), show that the ‘poorest’ MP, BJP’s Anil Dave has declared assets worth Rs 60.97 lakh. However, this number according to the report showed a sharp spike in merely six years. ADR reports that Anil Dave had declared Rs 2.75 lakh during the 2010 Rajya Sabha election. Even the non-crorepatis in the list are inching towards the status with Ram Kumar of BJP having declared assets worth Rs 86.22 lakh.

ADR has also done an analysis of which party has the highest number of crorepatis

MPs from JD(U), DMK, BSP and TDP are also all crorepatis.

Great, money is fine, but what about criminal cases and educational qualifications, you ask?

Of the 57 newly-elected MPs, five percent have declared their education qualifications to be class 10 pass and class 12 pass. However, 58 percent (33 MPs) have declared themselves as graduates and graduate professionals with 32 percent (18 MPs) declaring themselves as postgraduates. There are only 2 MPs who have done a PhD.

13 MPs have criminal cases pending against them including Gopal Narayan Singh (Bihar) and Subhash Chandra (Haryana) of the BJP.