As many as 28 ministers out of the 71 in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by Narendra Modi government have criminal cases against them, with 19 of them facing serious charges such as attempted murder, crimes against women and hate speech, shows an analysis by Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW).

Among the ministers facing the most severe allegations, two, Shantanu Thakur and Sukanta Majumdar, have declared cases related to attempt to murder under Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Mr Thakur is the new minister of state for ports, shipping and waterways. At the same time, Mr Majumdar is the minister of state for education and development of north eastern region in the new Union government.

ADR and NEW analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 71 ministers out of 72 Ministers, including prime minister (PM) Modi from Lok Sabha Elections 2024 and current Rajya Sabha. The details of George Kurien were not analysed as he is not currently a member of either house and has not contested the Lok Sabha election, it says.

According to the analysis, 27% or 19 ministers have declared serious criminal cases, including cases related to attempts to murder, kidnapping and crimes against women.

The NDA government has 99% or 70 ministers, who are crorepatis, while the average assets of the ministers is nearly Rs108 crore, ADR says.

The analysis shows six ministers have declared assets worth more than Rs100 crore. It includes Dr Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani, Jyotiraditya M Scindia, HD Kumaraswamy, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Rao Inderjit Singh and Piyush Goyal.

ADR’s analysis shows that 11 or 15% of the ministers in the NDA government have declared their educational qualification to be 12th standard, while 57 or 80% of them have declared that they have an academic qualification of graduate or above. Three ministers are diploma-holders.