About 42 per cent ministers in Karnataka self-declared criminal cases pending against them in their affidavits filed during the last held assembly elections in 2008.
According to the Association for Democratic Reforms and Karnataka Election Watch, two out of the 24 ministers analysed have declared serious criminal charges like murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, theft etc. against them.
The ministers who declared serious criminal charges against them are:
1) Balachandra Laxmanrao Jarkhiholi (of BJP from Arabhavi) declared one case against him, including charges related to murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping, theft
2) C T Ravi (of BJP from Chikmagalur) has declared five criminal cases, including charges of promoting enmity between different groups on the grounds of religion, race, residence, language
Here's more trivia. About 75 per cent (18 out of 24) cabinet ministers are crorepatis.
Overall, 61 per cent (131 out of the 215) MLAs in the 2008 Karnataka assembly were crorepatis.
Anand Singh of BJP from Vijayanagara constituency has the highest assets (Rs. 88.66 crore) among the Karnataka cabinet ministers followed by V Somanna of the BJP who was elected as MLC in 2010 with assets worth Rs.10.99 crore. Coming behind them is Asnotikar Anand Vasant of the BJP from Karwar with assets worth Rs 10.39 crore.
The average asset of the ministers in the 2008 Karnataka assembly was Rs 6.96 crore.
Of the lot, 14 of them were ministers in the 2004 Karnataka assembly as well.
The average party-wise assets in the 2008 Karnataka assembly is Rs 9.55 crores for Congress (70 MLAs), Rs 4.43 crore JD-S (26 MLAs), Rs 4.35 crore BJP (112 MLAs) and Rs 1.48 for Independent MLAs (6 MLAs).
The average assets per MLA is the highest i.e, Rs 5.98 crore in the 2008 Karnataka Assembly followed by the 2011 Tamil Nadu assembly with an average of Rs 3.98 crore, the 2009 Andhra Pradesh Assembly with Rs 3.78 crore and the 2011 Kerala assembly with Rs 1.43 crore.
R Varthur Prakash with assets worth 2 lakh has the lowest assets among all the ministers analysed in Karnataka.
