Out of the 78 ministers in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Cabinet, 33 – or 42% – have declared criminal cases against them, showed a report released by the Association for Democratic Reforms on Thursday. The report showed that 24 ministers have declared serious criminal cases against them, including for murder, attempt to murder and robbery.
On Wednesday, the prime minister inducted 43 leaders in the Union Cabinet. With this, the total number of members in the prime minister’s council of ministers went up to 78.
The report has been based on analysis of the “self-sworn affidavits of all 78 ministers”, the organisation said.
The Association for Democratic Reforms said that Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports Nisith Pramanik has declared cases of murder and attempt to murder against him. Three other ministers – John Barla, Pankaj Choudhary and V Muraleedharan – have attempt to murder cases against them, the report showed.
In addition, Home Minister Amit Shah, Minister of Panchayati Raj Giriraj Singh, Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Shobha Karandlaje, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Pralhad Joshi have declared cases for causing communal disharmony against them.
Seven ministers – Nitin Gadkari, Giriraj Singh, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Satya Pal Singh Baghel, Pankaj Choudhary, Bhagwanth Khuba and Kaushal Kishor – have cases against them for electoral violations, including bribery and illegal payments.
Finances
The report showed that 70 ministers, or 90% of the 78 members of the Cabinet, had assets in crores. The average asset of a minister was Rs 16.24 crore.
Four ministers – Jyotiraditya Scindia, Piyush Goyal, Narayan Rane and Rajeev Chandrasekhar – have declared assets worth more than Rs 50 crore. Scindia is the only minister whose total worth was more than Rs 100 crore. His total asset is over Rs 379 crore.
Muraleedharan, Barla, Pramanik, Kailash Choudhary, Bishweshwar Tudu, Rameswar Teli, Shantanu Thakur and Pratima Bhoumik have declared assets worth less than Rs 1 crore. Bhoumik has the lowest total asset – Rs 6 lakh.
Sixteen ministers have declared liabilities worth more than Rs 1 crore, the report showed. Out of this, three ministers – Goyal, Narayan Tatu Rane and Krishan Pal have declared financial liabilities worth more than Rs 10 crore.
Education and other backgrounds
Out of the 78 ministers, only two have completed their education till Class 8 and three till Class 10. As many as 64 ministers have an educational qualification of a graduate and above with two of them holding diploma degrees. Barla and Pramanik have studied till Class 8 while Tudu, Teli and Rane studied till Class 10.
The report also showed that 11 of the 78 ministers are women. There are four ministers in the cabinet aged between 31 and 40. Eighteen ministers are aged between 41 to 50 years, as many as 29 are between 51 to 60 years and 27 are aged between 61 to 70.
This story first appeared on scroll.in
