July 10, 2021:  Around 42 per cent of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new Cabinet has ministers with criminal records. A whopping 90 per cent of the ministers are millionaires, a report of  Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a poll rights group said.

Citing election affidavits, ADR said in its report that 33 ministers (42%) in the new cabinet have declared criminal cases against them. Of these, 24 ministers (31% of the total number of members) have declared 'serious' criminal cases against them -- which include counts of murder, attempt to murder, or robbery. 

Nisith Pramanik, 35, the youngest minister in Modi Cabinet who has been appointed as the Minister of State for Home Affairs has declared a case related to murder (IPC Section-302) against himself. Four ministers have declared cases related to attempt to murder (IPC Section-307). They are - John Barla, Pramanik, Pankaj Choudhary and V Muraleedharan.

Around 90 per cent members of the new Union cabinet (70 ministers) are millionaires, which means they have declared total assets amounting to over Rs10 million (one crore).

Four ministers have been tagged as 'high asset ministers'. They are Jyotiraditya Scindia with assets worth over Rs 379 crore, Piyush Goyal with assets over Rs 95 crore, Narayan Rane has assets over Rs 87 crore and Rajeev Chandrasekhar has declared assets over Rs 64 crore.

The average worth of assets per minister has been found to be around Rs 16.24 crore, the report noted.