Out of the 42 Ministers in the new Maharashtra Cabinet, 41 are crorepatis , with an average annual income of ₹21.95 crore, according to a report from the Association of Democratic Reforms.
The report analysed the criminal and financial backgrounds among other details of Ministers in the Maha Vikas Aghadi government.
Since Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has never contested an election, his background details are not available in the analysis. When compared to the 2014 State Cabinet, a total of 82% Ministers are crorepatis.
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The top three Ministers with highest declared assets are Vishwajeet Kadam of the Congress (₹216 crore), Ajit Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) with ₹75 crore, and Rajesh Tope of the NCP (₹53 crore).
Only exception
The only Minister who is not a crorepati is the NCP’s first-time MLA Aditi Tatkare, who was sworn in as Minister of State, with declared assets of ₹39 lakh.
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In the present Cabinet, 27 (64%) of the Ministers have declared criminal cases against themselves, while 18 (43%) have declared serious criminal cases against them.
In 2014, 64% of the Ministers had declared criminal cases, while 46% had serious cases registered against them.
The top three Ministers with high income are Mr. Pawar (₹3.86 crore), Amit Deshmukh (₹3.26 crore) and Mr. Kadam (₹2.35 crore). A total of 37 out of 42 Ministers have declared liabilities. The top three on this list are Mr. Kadam (₹121 crore), Jitendra Awhad (₹37 crore) and Vijay Vadettiwar (₹22 crore).
A total of 18 (43%) Ministers have declared their educational qualifications to be between Class VIII and XII, while 22 (52%) have declared a minimum educational qualification of graduation.
A total of 17 (40%) Ministers have declared their age to be between 25 and 50 years, while 25 (60%) have declared their age to be between 51 and 80 years. Only three Ministers in the State Cabinet are women.