Revealing the darker side of the Indian politics, a study found that as many as 34 per cent of the State Ministers have declared criminal cases against them, while 76 per cent are crorepatis with average assets of Rs 8.59 crore.
The study conducted by the Delhi-based think-tank ADR, took into account a total of 609 ministers out of 620 from 29 State Assemblies and two Union Territories.
"Out of the 609 ministers analysed from state Assemblies, 462 (76 per cent) are crorepatis," ADR said in its study released today.
Among the ministers with highest assets include Ponguru Narayana of Telugu Desam Party with total assets of Rs 496 crore, followed by D K Shivakumar of Congress (Rs 251 crore), said the Association for Democratic Reforms.
"Out of the 609 ministers analysed from State Assemblies, 210 (34 per cent) ministers have declared criminal cases against themselves. Out of the 78 Union council of ministers analysed, 24 (31 per cent) have declared criminal cases against themselves," it added.
Moreover, 113 ministers from State Assemblies have declared serious criminal cases, including cases related to murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, and crime against women.
Out of the 78 ministers analysed from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, 14 have declared serious criminal cases against themselves, the study said.
The states with highest percentage of ministers with serious criminal cases include 9 ministers from Jharkhand, 4 from Delhi, 9 from Telangana, 18 from Maharashtra, 11 from Bihar and 2 from Uttarakhand.
The average assets per minister from State Assemblies is Rs 8.59 crore. Compared to this, the average assets of the Union Council of ministers is Rs 12.94 crore, ADR said.
Also, the average assets of ministers with declared criminal cases is Rs 9.52 crore, while the average assets of ministers with no criminal cases is Rs 8.10 crore.
The state with the highest average assets per minister is Andhra Pradesh (20 ministers) with average assets of Rs 45.49 crore, followed by Karnataka (31 ministers) with average assets of Rs 36.96 crore and Arunachal Pradesh (7 ministers) with average assets of Rs 32.62 crore.
The state with the lowest average assets of ministers is Tripura (12 ministers) with average assets of Rs 31.67 lakh.
All state council of ministers analysed from Arunachal Pradesh, Punjab and Puducherry are 100 per cent crorepatis. They are followed by 97 per cent ministers of Karnataka and 92 per cent ministers from Rajasthan, Goa, Meghalaya and Chhattisgarh who have also declared assets valued at Rs 1 crore and above.
Out of 609 ministers, 51 are women and the highest number of women ministers are from Madhya Pradesh followed by Tamil Nadu.
(With PTI inputs)
