Leaner, a little younger, and with more women in positions of power — the incoming Council of Ministers is in some ways a change from the outgoing one.
The average minister is worth over Rs. 13 crore, however, and at least 14 ministers have criminal casesagainst them.
The average age of the new cabinet is just over 60, three years less than the average age that MPs of the outgoing cabinet were at the start of their term. The average age of the Council of Ministers as a whole is 57.4 years, according to The Hindu’s analysis of data from the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha websites, the Association for Democratic Reforms and PRS Legislative Research. Cabinet Minister Najma Heptullah, who is getting a ministerial berth for the first time at 74, is the oldest and first-time Rajya Sabha MP Smriti Irani at the age of 38 is the youngest. The minister she replaces, Pallam Raju, was the youngest minister in the outgoing cabinet, 52 when he demitted office.
The new Council of ministers has seven women among its 46, six of them of with cabinet rank and one with Minister of State rank with independent charge. The outgoing Council of Ministers had nine women among its 71, but just two of them — Chandresh Kumari Katoch (culture) and Girija Vyas (housing and urban poverty alleviation) were of cabinet rank.
Both the incoming and outgoing cabinet have one thing in common — each have four ministerial berths given to allies, and all others with the main party, the Congress in the outgoing Lok Sabha and the BJP in the incoming one.
Led by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, nine of the outgoing cabinet’s 28 cabinet ministers, or 32%, came through the Rajya Sabha. While PM Mr. Modi came through a Lok Sabha seat, a quarter of his cabinet has taken the Rajya Sabha route.
The new cabinet is worth Rs. 429 crores put together (minus Thawar Chand Gehlot, whose financial information was not immediately available), at an average of Rs. 18.66 crore per minister. The new Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is the richest, worth over Rs 113 crore, while Lok Jan Shakti Party leader Ramvilas Paswan is the only non-crorepati minister, with assets of Rs. 96 lakh.
Cabinet minister Uma Bharti has the longest list of criminal cases against her — 13 cases including two charges of attempt to murder and one charge of creating enmity between communities. Nitin Gadkari follows with four criminal charges.
All but seven of the cabinet ministers are graduates and above. Nearly half the cabinet lists ‘politics’ as its profession, and there is one ‘landlord’ (Mr. Raju) and one actor (Ms. Irani).
Press Release
16th Lok Sabha
Analysis of Criminal, Financial, and Other background details of Union Council of Ministers
National Election Watch (NEW) and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) had sent a letter to the Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, on the 20th of May, 2014 bringing to his notice the disturbing fact that the newly formed 16th Lok Sabha has a sizeable number of MPs (112 i.e. 21%) facing serious criminal charges and requesting him to include only clean representatives in his Cabinet. Shri Narendra Modi committed to critically examine MPs with self-declared criminal cases and fast tracking cases against them during the recent Lok Sabha campaign said, “the next Parliament would be cleaned by punishing the guilty”.
National Election Watch (NEW) and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) have analysed the self-sworn affidavits of44 ministers out of 46 Ministers (Including Prime Minister) from Lok Sabha 2014 and current Rajya Sabha. The details of Prakash Javadekar and Nirmala Sitharaman were not analysed as they are not currently members of either house.
Detailed Report in English attached with this mail
Criminal Background
- Ministers with Criminal Cases: Out of the 44 Ministers analysed, 13 (30%) Ministers have declared criminal cases against themselves.
- Ministers with Serious Criminal Cases: 8 (18%) Ministers have declared serious criminal cases including cases related to attempt to murder, communal disharmony, kidnapping, electoral violations etc.
- Minister with case related to Attempt to Murder: Uma Bharti from Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh of BJP has declared a case related to attempt to murder (IPC Section-307)
- Ministers with cases related to causing Communal Disharmony: Uma Bharti from Jhansi constituency, Uttar Pradesh of BJP has declared a case Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony (IPC Section-153A)
- Ministers with cases related to Electoral Violations: Uma Bharti of BJP from Jhansi constituency, Uttar Pradesh, has declared a case related to Illegal payments in connection with an election (IPC Section-171H). Upendra Kushwaha of Rashtriya Lok Samta Party from Karakat constituency, Bihar and Ram Vilas Paswan of LJP from Hajipur constituency, Bihar have each declared a case related to Bribery (IPC Section – 171E)
- Ministers with cases related to Kidnapping: Munde Gopinathrao Pandurang from Beed Constituency, Maharashtra of BJP has declared a case related to Kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine person (IPC Section-365)
- Crorepati Ministers: Out of the 44 Ministers analysed, 40 (91%) are crorepatis.
- Average Assets*: The average assets per minister is Rs.13.47 crores.
- High Asset Ministers*: 5 Ministers have declared more than Rs.30 crores worth of assets. These Ministers are as follows:
S.No. | Name | State | Constituency | Party Name | Total Assets (Rs) | PAN Given |
1 | Arun Jaitley | Gujarat | Rajya Sabha (Gujarat) | BJP | 1,13,02,16,000 | Y |
2 | Harsimrat Kaur Badal | Punjab | Bathinda | SAD | 1,08,16,64,910 | Y |
3 | Munde Gopinathrao Pandurang | Maharashtra | Beed | BJP | 38,00,72,890 | Y |
4 | Maneka Sanjay Gandhi | Uttar Pradesh | Pilibhit | BJP | 37,41,32,826 | Y |
5 | Piyush Goyal | Maharashtra | Rajya Sabha (Maharashtra) | BJP | 30,34,65,410 | Y |
*Total Assets includes assets of self, spouse and dependents.
- Low Asset Ministers: A total of 4 Ministers have declared assets less than Rs. 1 crore. These four Ministers with lowest assets are as follows:
S.No. | Name | State | Constituency | Party Name | Movable Assets (Rs) | Immovable Assets (Rs) | Total Assets (Rs) | PAN Given |
1 | Mansukhbhai Dhanjibhai Vasava | Gujarat | Bharuch | BJP | 45,21,062 | 20,50,000 | 65,71,062 | Y |
2 | Thavarchand | Madhya Pradesh | Rajya Sabha (Madhya Pradesh) | BJP | 19,64,293* | 66,48,690* | 86,12,983 | Y |
3 | Sudarshan Bhagat | Jharkhand | Lohardaga | BJP | 75,81,009 | 14,50,000* | 90,31,009 | Y |
4 | Ram Vilas Paswan | Bihar | Hajipur | LJP | 68,42,023 | 28,00,000 | 96,42,023 | Y |
- Ministers with High Liabilities: A total of 9 Ministers have declared liabilities of Rs. 1 crore and above. Out of these 9 Ministers, 2 have declared liabilities of Rs. 30 crore and above. These Ministers are as given below:
S.No. | Name | State | Constituency | Party Name | Total Assets(Rs) | Liabilities (Rs) | PAN Given |
1 | Harsimrat Kaur Badal | Punjab | Bathinda | SAD | 1,08,16,64,910 | 41,26,34,299 | Y |
2 | Munde Gopinathrao Pandurang | Maharashtra | Beed | BJP | 38,00,72,890 | 33,57,29,817 | Y |
- Education Details of Ministers: 8(18%) Ministers have declared that have an education qualification of 12thpass or below while 35(80%) Ministers have declared having an educational qualification of graduate or above.
Education Group | Number of Ministers analyzed |
5th Pass | 1 |
10th Pass | 5 |
12th Pass | 2 |
Graduate | 6 |
Graduate Professional | 17 |
Post Graduate | 9 |
Doctorate | 3 |
Others | 1 |
Total | 44 |
- Age Details of Ministers: 9(20%) Ministers have declared their age to be between 31 to 50 years while33(75%) Ministers have declared their age to be between 51 to 70 years and 2 ministers have declared their age to be above 70 years.
Age Group | Number of Ministers Analyzed |
31-40 | 1 |
41-50 | 8 |
51-60 | 16 |
61-70 | 17 |
71-80 | 2 |
Total | 44 |
- Gender Details of Ministers: There are 7 (15%) women ministers out of a total of 46 ministers.
Media and Journalist Helpline+91 80103 94248Email: [email protected] | Maj.Gen. (Retd) Anil VermaHeadNational Election Watch,Association for Democratic Reforms011 4165 4200,+91 88264 79910[email protected], | Prof Jagdeep ChhokarIIM Ahmedabad (Retd.)Founder Member,National Election Watch, Association for DemocraticReforms+91 99996 20944[email protected]
| Prof Trilochan SastryIIM BangaloreFounder Member,National Election Watch,Association for Democratic Reforms+91 94483 53285[email protected]
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