Money power rules the Upper House of Parliament.
About two-thirds of Rajya Sabha members are crorepatis with average assets worth around Rs 20 crore, according to a survey by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) and the National Election Watch (NEW).
Analysis of financial backgrounds of these MPs revealed that among major parties, the average asset of Rajya Sabha MPs from the Congress, the BJP, the BSP and the CPI(M) was Rs 16.74 crore, Rs 8.51 crore, Rs 13.82 crore and Rs 39.65 lakh, respectively.
So far as crorepati Rajya Sabha MPs are concerned, Mahendra Prasad of the JD(U) occupies the first place with assets worth Rs 683 crore, followed by Vijay Mallya, an independent member from Karnataka, with Rs 615 crore and Jaya Bachchan of the Samajwadi Party with properties worth Rs 493 crore.
Incidentally, Jaya Bachchan has the highest liability at Rs 152.34 crore, followed by Congress' Abhishek Manu Singhvi with liabilities to the tune of Rs 37.24 crore.
With total assets of Rs 11 crore, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh does not figure in the list of top 10 rich Rajya Sabha members.
BSP chief Mayawati appear in the list with total assets worth Rs 111 crore.
Thirty-two MPs have not declared their PAN details, the survey revealed. Among those 32 members are BJP's Najma Heptullah (Rs 25 crore), Congress' Dhiraj Prasad Sahu (Rs 14 crore) and JD(U)'s Nand Kishore Sahu (Rs 13 crore).
The survey also found that 17 per cent of the MPs had criminal cases against them, while 9 per cent of these were declared "serious".
Among the 15 MPs who have declared serious criminal cases, BSP's Professor Baghel SP Singh has one case with charges related to attempt to murder (Section 307 of IPC) and Congress' Parvej Hashmi with one case related to voluntarily causing grievous hurt (Section 325).
The ADR and NEW analysed affidavits of 227 out of 245 Rajya Sabha MPs.
Twelve members are nominated by the President and are not mandated under current laws to submit their affidavits to the Election Commission.
There are four seats lying vacant right now (two in Uttar Pradesh, one in Andhra Pradesh and one nominated seat).
Three affidavits were either badly scanned or a few pages are missing (Nand Kumar Sai of BJP from Chhattisgarh, Aayanur Manjunatha of BJP from Karnataka and Mohammed Adeeb an Independent member from UP). Nine MPs have declared assets worth less than Rs 20 lakh.
Anil Dave of BJP has declared lowest assets worth Rs 2.75 lakh followed by AITC's Mohammad Nadimul (`3.19 lakh) and CPI(M)'s Shyamal Chakraborty (`5.47 lakh).
