Of the 44 members in Modi’s ministerial team, no less than 41 - or 91 per cent - are crorepatis.
Union Finance and Defence Minister Arun Jaitley is the richest minister of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, with assets totalling Rs 114.03 crore.
The wealth of Modi’s ministers has been analysed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW) by comparing the declarations filed for the Lok Sabha elections in May this year and those sent about five months later to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
Declarations of 45 ministers, including Modi himself, have been analysed. Of the 45 ministers, 37 had contested the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and eight are members of the Rajya Sabha. Unlike the railway minister, Jaitley’s assets have shown an increase of Rs 1.01 crore in the same period.
The average value of assets of Modi’s Council of Ministers, according to the declarations on the PMO website, is Rs 14.32 crore. Following Jaitley on the rich list are Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Rs 108.31 crore) and Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power, Coal and New and New and Renewable Energy Piyush Goyal of the Bharatiya Janata Party (Rs 94.66 crore)
According to the ADR, many Union ministers including Gowda, Dr Harsh Vardhan, Ananth Kumar, Jitendra Kumar, Manoj Sinha, and Santosh Kumar Gangwar have not declared the value of their agricultural land in their declarations.
On the not-so-rich side, the least wealth has been declared by Sudarshan Bhagat of BJP (Rs 59.13 lakh) followed by Mansukhbhai Dhanjibhai Vasava of the BJP (Rs 65.71 lakh) and Ram Vilas Paswan of the Lok Janashakti Party (Rs 95.71 lakh).
Among the ministers who contested the Lok Sabha 2014 elections, the highest increase in assets in five months has been shown by D.V. Sadananda Gowda of the BJP (Cabinet Minister for Railways)rising by Rs 10.46 crore since he took over as minister.
Sadananda Gowda is followed by Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Radhakrishnan P. of the BJP, who has shown an increase of Rs 2.98 crore from the Rs 4.09 crore he declared in the Lok Sabha polls.
Note
The 2009 Cabinet of the UPA had 47 crorepati ministers, of which 38 were from the Congress, five from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, two from the Nationalist Congress Party, and one each from the National Conference and Trinamool Congress.
NCP leader Praful Patel was the richest of the lot, with assets worth Rs 89.9 crore.
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