Mirror, Mirror On The Wall Who’s Richest Indian CM Of All?

OB Bureau

December 27, 2022 10:34 am

New Delhi: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy is the richest CM in India West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee, has the least net assets.

These, among other facts, stood out during ThePrint’s analysis of the last election affidavits of the country’s 30 chief ministers.

The richest

Andhra Pradesh CM Jagan Reddy at Rs 370 crore, which is more than those of all the other CMs combined. This includes the assets he inherited as well as those acquired.
Arunachal Pradesh CM Pema Khandu at Rs 132 crore.
Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan at Rs 73 lakh.
Bihar CM Nitish Kumar at Rs 56 lakh.
West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee at Rs 15 lakh.
The cumulative assets of all eight northeastern chief ministers (Rs 178.85), in fact, are a little more than those of all the other CMs — barring Reddy— combined (Rs 178,49), the election affidavits show.

CMs with firearms

Sikkim CM Tamang owns a bore revolver worth Rs 3 lakh.
Maharashtra’s Eknath Shinde owns a revolver and a pistol that together cost Rs 5 lakh.
Uttar Pradesh’s Yogi Adityanath is the only other chief minister to list two weapons — a revolver and a rifle.
Jharkhand’s Soren and Uttarakhand’s Dhami also own weapons.
Manipur’s Biren Singh owns a pistol worth Rs 1.75 lakh
Punjab’s Mann owns a gun worth Rs 20,000
Madhya Pradesh’s Chouhan owns a revolver worth Rs 5,500

Richer spouses

Assam CM’s wife, Riniki Bhuyan Sarma, who’s listed as “chairman-cum-managing director” of Pride East Entertainment Pvt Ltd media company, holds assets worth Rs 11 crore against her husband’s Rs 1 crore.
Soren is worth Rs 2.24 crore while his wife Kalpana has Rs 5.81 crore worth of assets to her name.
Chouhan’s net assets come to Rs 2.6 crore against his spouse Sadhna Singh’s Rs 3.9 crore.
Maharashtra CM Shinde’s wife Lata Shinde is a construction “contractor” whose net assets come to Rs 5.5 crore. Shinde, meanwhile, holds assets worth Rs 2.24 crore.
Five of the 30 CMs — Haryana’s Manohar Lal Khattar, Odisha’s Naveen Patnaik, UP’s Adityanath, and Puducherry’s N. Rangaswamy, and West Bengal’s Banerjee — are unmarried, the affidavits show.
Sikkim’s Tamang stands out as being the only one to have multiple wives. All three of his wives are government employees.

Most criminal cases

At 64, Telangana’s K. Chandrashekar Rao, or KCR, has the most criminal cases.
Tamil Nadu’s M.K. Stalin and Andhra Pradesh’s Jagan have 47 and 38 cases each.
None of these cases relates to the most heinous crimes like rape or murder. However, they include charges of criminal intimidation (KCR and Reddy), rioting (KCR), cheating (Reddy), attempts to murder (KCR), and kidnapping (Stalin).
None of the country’s 10 BJP CMs has a single criminal case against them, their affidavits show.
Among non-BJP CMs, Rajasthan’s Ashok Gehlot, West Bengal’s Banerjee, Odisha’s Patnaik, Meghalaya’s Conrad Sangma, Nagaland’s Neiphiu Rio, and Puducherry’s Rangaswamy also face no criminal charges.
Tamang is the only chief minister to have been convicted in a corruption case.

Education level

Assam’s Himanta Biswa Sarma is the most educated among India’s CMs with a doctorate in philosophy, an MA in political science, and a law degree.
Tripura’s Manik Saha has a master’s degree in dentistry.
Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal and Karnataka’s Basavraj Bommai both have degrees in mechanical engineering.
Gujarat’s Bhupendra Patel has a diploma in civil engineering.
Maharashtra’s Eknath Shinde is the least educated of all his peers. He isn’t even a high school graduate.

Number of vehicles owned

Only eight CMs — Khattar, Vijayan, Gehlot, Stalin, KCR, Adityanath, Dhami, and Banerjee — own no vehicles of their own, the affidavits show.
Andhra CM Reddy has four vehicles to his name — three Scorpios and a BMW. For these, he writes in his affidavit: “Bulletproof vehicles owned by others, are registered in my name (though not owned or invested by me) in view of (the) stipulation by Ministry of Home Affairs”.
Khandu owns the highest number of vehicles — seven in all, worth Rs 1.5 crore. These are a Tata Truck, two Ford Endeavours, one Toyota Fortuner, one Bolero, and one Tata dumper.
Nagaland’s Neiphiu Rio has the next set of most expensive vehicles. His three — a Maruti Alto, a BMW MINI, and a Land Cruiser Prado — cost over Rs 1 crore.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and his wife Mukteshwari Baghel, both of whom list “agriculture” as their profession, own one tractor each.

Immovable assets

Odisha’s Naveen Patnaik has inherited the most property, the affidavits show. Patnaik inherited Rs 60 crore worth of immovable property.
Puducherry’s Rangaswamy at Rs 38 crore.
Immovable property includes residential and commercial buildings, as well as agricultural and non-agricultural land. Having already inherited crores worth of property, however, neither Rangaswamy nor Patnaik have acquired any of their own, the affidavits show.
Others who haven’t acquired any such new property are Tripura’s Manik Saha, who inherited Rs 10.8 crore, and Haryana’s Khattar, who was bequeathed only Rs 33 lakh.
Eight CMs who inherited nothing have made fortunes for themselves.
KCR leads this list with assets worth Rs 12 crore. He’s followed by Eknath Shinde (Rs 4.47 crore), Basavraj Bommai (Rs. 3.77 crore), Bhupendra Patel (Rs 3.04 crore), and Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Rs 2.83 crore).
Mizoram CM Zoramthanga, Karnataka’s Bommai, and Jharkhand’s Soren, all of whom inherited nothing, now own immovable assets worth over Rs 1 crore.
Three chief ministers who own no immovable property are Adityanath, Banerjee, and Sarma. However, Sarma’s wife Riniki Bhuyan has immovable assets worth Rs 4 crore to her name, the affidavits show.