By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
New Delhi: If not for the common people, acche din (good days), as promised by Narendra Modi, has come for his cabinet ministers, whose personal wealth have grown in crores in just five months since they assumed office.
Association Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW) have analyzed the declarations all 45 Union Council of Ministers, including the Prime Minister and compared it with the assets declared by them in their last election affidavit/asset declaration.
[Courtesy: bestcurrentaffairs.com]
Among the Ministers who contested Lok Sabha 2014 elections, the highest increase in assets in 5 months has been shown by D.V. Sadananda Gowda of the BJP (Cabinet Minister for Railways). His assets have shown an increase of Rs. 10.46 crores (from Rs. 9.88 crores as declared in Lok Sabha 2014 elections to Rs. 20.35 crores in the 2014 declarations of the Union Council of Ministers to the PMO).
He is followed by Radhakrishnan P of the BJP (Minister of State, Independent Charge, Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises) who has shown an increase of Rs. 2.98 crores (from Rs. 4.09 crores in Lok Sabha 2014 to Rs. 7.07 crores in the disclosure to the PMO) and Arun Jaitley of the BJP (Cabinet Minister for Finance, Corporate Affairs and Defence) who showed an increase of Rs. 1.01 crores (from Rs. 113.02 crores in Lok Sabha 2014 to Rs. 114.03 crores in the 2014 disclosure to the PMO).
The declaration of assets by the Ministers has been made according to the Code of Conduct issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
According to data analysed by the ADR-NEW, 41 (91%) of the Ministers are crorepatis based on their declarations to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). The average assets of Ministers according to their declarations on the PMO website are Rs. 14.32 crores.
The highest assets have been declared by Arun Jaitely (Rs. 114.03 crore) of BJP followed by Harsimrat Kaur Badal of SAD (Rs. 108.31 crores) and Shri Piyush Goyal of BJP (Rs. 94.66 crores).
The lowest assets have been declared by Shri Sudarshan Bhagat of BJP (Rs. 59.13 lakhs) followed by Mansukhbhai Dhanjibhai Vasava of the BJP (Rs. 65.71 lakhs) and Ramvilas Paswan of LJP (Rs. 95.71 lakhs).
Interestingly, 16 Ministers have also shown a decrease in assets. The highest decrease has been shown by Sushma Swaraj of BJP (Cabinet Minister, External Affairs and Overseas Indian Affairs) who showed a decrease of Rs. 3.89 crores (from Rs. 17.55 crores declared in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections to Rs. 13.65 crores declared in the 2014 disclosure to the PMO).
She is followed by Gen. V.K. Singh (Retd.) of BJP (Minister of State, Development of North Eastern Region (Independent Charge), External Affairs and Overseas Indian Affairs) who declared a decrease of Rs. 3.13 crores (from 4.11 crores declared in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections to Rs. 98.27 lakhs declared in the 2014 disclosure to the PMO) followed by Dr. Harsh Vardhan of BJP (Cabinet Minister, Health and Family Welfare) who declared a decrease of Rs. 1.28 crores (from 2.82 crores declared in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections to Rs. 1.54 crores declared in the 2014 disclosure to the PMO).
ADR and NEW, who analysed in depth, the declarations of Ministers who contested the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 with an increase or decrease in assets of more than Rs. 50 lakhs, found the lack of any standardized format for ministers’ asset declarations as the main reason behind differences in wealth declared on two different occasions.
ADR-NEW argued that the purpose of the Ministers’ declaration is to encourage financial transparency and its very objective is belied when the declarations are not made in the spirit of the instructions issued by the MHA. It has hence strongly recommended that the asset declarations should be made in a standard format, preferably in the format of the election affidavit.