- Saturday, March 01, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Twenty-nine of India’s 30 incumbent chief ministers (CMs) are ‘crorepatis’ (millionaires) with Andhra Pradesh’s Jagan Mohan Reddy having the highest assets totalling Rs 510 crore (£50 million), according to poll affidavits analysed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
One crore means Rs 10,000,000 which is equal to £98,125.
West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, who is also the only woman chief minister in India at the moment, was the only non-millionaire with total assets of about Rs 15 lakh (£14,719), the ADR said.
The ADR and Election Watch (NEW) said they have arrived at this conclusion after analysing the self-sworn poll affidavits of all the current chief ministers of 30 Indian states and Union Territories (UTs).
While the country has 28 state CMs, two UTs — Delhi and Puducherry — also have chief ministers.
The UT of Jammu and Kashmir, which was previously a state, does not have a chief minister currently.
Out of the 30 CMs analysed, 29 (97 per cent) are ‘crorepatis’ with the average assets being Rs 33.96 crore (3.3 million) for every CM, the ADR said.
It also said that out of the 30 CMs, 13 (43 per cent) have declared serious criminal cases, including those related to murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping and criminal intimidation.
Serious criminal cases are non-bailable offences with over five years of imprisonment, the report said.
The top three chief ministers in terms of assets are, besides Reddy, Arunachal Pradesh’s Pema Khandu (over Rs 163 crore or £16 million) and Odisha’s Naveen Pattnaik (over Rs 63 crore or £6.1 million), according to the ADR.
The three CMs with the lowest declared assets are – Banerjee (over Rs 15 lakh), Kerala’s Pinarayi Vijayan (over Rs 1 crore) and Haryana’s Manohar Lal (over Rs 1 crore), the ADR said.
Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal own assets worth over Rs 3 crore (£294,376), the report added.
(With PTI inputs)
