New Delhi: At least 42 per cent of the 78 ministers in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s union cabinet have criminal charges against them after a massive reshuffle earlier this week, according to a new analysis released by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) poll rights group. The charges were announced. According to research, four of these ministers have been involved in cases of attempt to murder.
After their swearing-in ceremony on Wednesday earlier this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi handed over responsibilities to the newly-inducted MLAs. A total of 15 ministers were appointed to the cabinet, and 28 legislators were appointed as Union Ministers of State. As a result, the Prime Minister’s Council of Ministers currently has a total of 78 members.
The ADR used election affidavits to highlight 33 ministers (42 per cent) in the new cabinet who had declared criminal proceedings against them in the Union Council of Ministers’ analysis after their expansion in the 17th Lok Sabha. Of these, 24 ministers (or 31% of the total number of members) have been charged with ‘serious’ criminal offences, such as murder, attempt to murder, or robbery.
ADR is a voting rights organization that regularly releases reports before elections, collating politicians’ affidavits to determine criminal, financial and other background facts.
Furthermore, according to the ADR report, around 90% of the new Union Cabinet (70 ministers) are crorepatis, which means they have reported net assets of more than ten million rupees (one crore). Jyotiraditya Scindia (over 379 crores), Piyush Goyal (over 95 crores), Narayan Rane (over 87 crores), and Rajiv Chandrashekhar (over 64 crores) are the four ministers with the most wealth. – is classified as a ‘High Asset Minister’, which means he has declared assets of more than ₹50 crore.
According to the research, the average property value per minister was fixed at around 16.24 crores. Pratima Bhowmik of Tripura (over 6 lakhs), John Barla of West Bengal (over 14 lakhs), Kailash Choudhary of Rajasthan (over 24 lakhs), Bishweshwar Tudu of Odisha (over 27 lakhs), and V Muraleedharan of Maharashtra (more than ₹27 lakh) is the cabinet minister with the smallest declared assets.
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