Jaipur: Four ministers in Rajasthan—Brij Kishore Sharma (primary and secondary education), Bharat Singh (PWD), Rajendra Singh Gudha (MoS Independent charge civil defence) and Mangilal Garasia (MoS Independent charge labour and employment)—did not declare their assets in 2012, against the mandatory code of conduct for ministers. Of these, Gudha had last made his declaration in 2010.

 

On the other hand, four ministers—Rajendra Pareek, Hemaram Chaudhury, Virendra Beniwal, Murarilal Meena and Rajkumar Sharma—have gone an extra mile and voluntarily made their income tax returns public, along with their asset declarations for 2012.

 

This was disclosed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Rajasthan Election Watch at a press conference on Thursday. According to the analysis, which compared the immovable and financial assets held by ministers between 2008 (filed at the time of elections) and 2012, 23 ministers in Rajasthan now hold 229 properties between them, working out to an average of 10 properties per minister. The highest increase in the number of properties comes from Mahendrajeet Singh Malviya who held 25 properties in 2012 compared to 15 in 2008. State minister Manju Devi’s properties have increased from 7 to 14 in this period, while that of Ashok Bairwa has gone up from 8 to 13. Minister of state for health Rajkumar Sharma was the only one who declared he had no immovable property either in 2008 or 2012.

 

The ADR analysis also revealed that the Rajasthan Assembly sat for just 97 days over 9 sessions in the four year period 2009-2012. On average, it sat for just 24 days (or 4 weeks) in an entire year faring worse than states like Gujarat (31 days of sitting/year) and Himachal Pradesh (26 days/year).