YS Jagan richest CM in India with Rs 510 cr assets, KCR has Rs 8.8 cr liabilities, Mamata Banerjee poorest

HYDERABAD: YSRCP supremo YS Jaganmohan Reddy once again emerged the richest of all the chief ministers of the country, according to the latest report of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). The independent group, in collaboration with National Election Watch, has analysed the self-sworn affidavits of all the 30 current chief ministers of the State Assemblies and Union Territories of the country.

The report titled ‘Analysis of Current Chief Ministers from 28 State Assemblies and 2 Union Territories of India 2023’ was released on Wednesday by the group which champions democratic reforms in the country. Interestingly, the report sprang no major surprises as it showed a continuation of the same trend persisting over the past few years.

Accordingly, YS Jaganmohan Reddy of Andhra Pradesh maintained his top spot as the richest of all the 30 chief ministers in the country while West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee (Trinamool Congress) continued to be the poorest of them all. YS Jagan owns assets worth a little over Rs 510 crores while Mamata Banerjee stands in complete contrast, boasting of over Rs 15 lakhs against her name.

YS Jagan is followed, of course by a long distance, by BJP’s Pema Khandu of Arunachal Pradesh with total assets worth Rs 163 crores. In the third spot is BJD’s Naveen Patnaik, the Odisha Chief Minister, who has declared assets to the tune of Rs 63 crores.

Following Mamata Banerjee in the list of chief ministers with lowest assets are Kerala’s Pinarayi Vijayan (CPI-M) with Rs 1.18 crores and BJP’s Manoharlal (Haryana) with declared assets of Rs 1.27 crores.

Interestingly, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) supremo and Telangana Chief Minister Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao, popularly known as KCR, ranks at the top among chief ministers who had highest declared liabilities. As against total assets worth Rs 23.5 crores, KCR, in his affidavit, has declared liabilities of Rs 8.88 crores. Tailing him are BJP’s Basavaraj Bommai of Karnataka (Rs 4.99-crore liabilities as against total assets of Rs 8.92 crores) and Eknath Sambhaji Shinde of Shiv Sena in Maharashtra with Rs 3.75 crore liabilities. His declared assets are worth Rs 11.6 crores.

As per the ADR report, 29 out of the total 30 chief ministers that were analysed are crorepatis, amounting to 97 percent while nine chief ministers have declared liabilities of Rs 1 crore or more. The average assets of a chief minister has been estimated at Rs 33.96 crores.

There weren’t too many variations in the ADR report for 2023 as compared to its 2022 edition. YS Jagan, Pema Khandu and Naveen Patnaik held on to their respective positions as the top three of the richest chief ministers. Among the poorest, Mamata Banerjee retained her top spot like in last year’s report. The only noticeable change was the case of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of JD(U) who was next to Mamata Banerjee last year with Rs 56 lakhs. His assets, as per ADR’s latest report, rose to Rs 3.09 crores since then.

In the share of wealth, three chief ministers have declared assets worth Rs 50 crore and above, amounting to 10 percent, while eight chief ministers (27 percent) are worth between Rs 10 and 50 crores. As many as 18 chief ministers or 60 percent of them, have assets between Rs 1 crore and Rs 10 crore while only one, Mamata Banerjee, has declared assets less than Rs 1 crore.

Among other major observations, 13 chief ministers out of the total 30, have declared criminal cases that were registered against them. These include serious cases related to murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping and criminal intimidation.

There was only one woman, Mamata Banerjee, among the chief ministers, amounting to 3 percent. On the education front, there are more graduates (11) followed by nine post-graduates and four graduate professionals. One chief minister is decorated with a doctorate while another is a diploma-holder. Three of them managed to pass the 12th standard while one has a ‘10th pass’ to his credit.

The age analysis reveals that four chief ministers were in the senior most age group of 71-80 years while nine each fall in the 61-70 and 51-60 age groups. There are seven chief ministers who are aged between 41 and 50 years and the youngest of them all is in the 31-40 age group.