The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) in its latest report on Karnataka Election Watch has revealed that nine ministers, who have taken oath in the state, have criminal cases against them and all are crorepatis.
In the report the ADR also said that four (44 per cent) out of the nine ministers analysed have declared serious criminal cases against themselves.
The report is based on the analysis of the self-sworn affidavits of nine out of 10 Ministers, including Siddaramaiah, the new Chief Minister of Karnataka, it said.
The report further said that it could not analyse KJ George’s case due to the unavailability of his clear and complete affidavits on the ECI website at the time of preparing the report.
Highlighting the financial background of the nine ministers, the report said that all the nine ministers in Karnataka are crorepatis.
It said, “The average assets of nine ministers analysed is Rs 229.27 crore.”
The report further said that Karnataka’s Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar is the richest as he has declared total assets worth Rs 1,413.80 crore, while Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s son Priyank Kharge (an MLA from Chittapur - SC constituency) is the minister with the lowest declared total assets of Rs 6.83 crore.
In the report the ADR has also come out with the liabilities declared by the Ministers and the analysis revealed that deputy CM DK Shivakumar, an MLA from the Kanakapura constituency, has the highest of this worth Rs 265.06 crore.
Highlighting the Ministers’ education, the report said, “Three Ministers have declared their educational qualification to be between 8th pass and 12th pass, while six Ministers have declared having an educational qualification of graduate and above.”
It also said that five ministers have declared their age to be between 41 and 60 years, while four ministers have declared their age to be between 61 and 80 years and pointed out that there are no women ministers in the new Karnataka Cabinet.
On Saturday, Siddaramaiah took oath as the new Karnataka Chief Minister with Shivakumar as his deputy. Besides the two, eight more ministers took oath at a ceremony in Bengaluru, which was attended by top Congress brass and several opposition party leaders from the country.
