Thaindian News

New Delhi, Jan 10 (IANS) Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati tops the list of chief ministers in the five election-bound states with maximum assets worth Rs.87 crore and 46 percent of her ministers have criminal cases pending against them, according to data released Tuesday by an NGO and a non-political organisation.

“RTI responses from five states showed Mayawati has the highest assets at Rs.87 crore,” said the data. “Chief Minister of Manipur Okram Ibobi Singh has the lowest assets at just Rs.6 lakh.”

Around one-third of a total of 100 ministers in the five states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur have self-declared pending criminal charges, showed the data.

NGO National Election Watch and non-political organisation Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) released the data on the basis of a study linked to RTI responses by state governments.

Punjab’s Parkash Singh Badal is the only chief minister who has got a criminal case, related to cheating and forgery, against him, said the study. He has assets worth Rs.9 crore, according to the study.

In comparison, Uttarakhand Chief Minister B.C. Khanduri has assets worth Rs.1.69 crore and his Goa counterpart Digambar Kamat has assets worth Rs.3.2 crore.

All five chief ministers are graduates. Khanduri is a post-graduate.

According to the report, Uttar Pradesh has the maximum percentage of ministers (46 percent) with pending criminal cases.

Of these, 30 percent ministers have serious criminal cases like murder and attempt to murder against them.

Punjab has 39 percent ministers with pending criminal cases followed by 33 percent in Uttarakhand and 8 percent in Goa. No Manipur minister is facing criminal cases.

Similarly, out of the 690 legislators analysed, 190 have criminal cases against them. Out of these, 89 had serious charges against them.

Uttar Pradesh topped the list with 143 such law makers while Punjab has 20, Uttarakhand 17, Goa 9 in Goa and Manipur one.

According to the report, 239 of 690 legislators in the five states have assets running into crores of rupees, with Punjab having the maximum 67 percent, followed by Goa 55 percent, Uttar Pradesh 32 percent, Uttarakhand 16 percent and Manipur 2 percent.