17 of the 19 ministers are multi-millionaires.
PM Narendra Modi’s induction of 19 new faces in the council of ministers is not just heavy on caste dynamics but also consists of legislators with deep pockets. All the 19 new junior ministers are collectively worth Rs 150 crore. The induction of five Dalits as junior ministers with an eye on the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh in 2017 is also heavily influenced by their financial muscle. Four of the five Dalit faces are either millionaires or multi-millionaires. And unlike a majority of Dalits in India who have no property rights, all the Dalit faces in Modi’s expanded Council of Ministers have huge agricultural land holdings.
There were five members of the Dalit community among the ministers who took oath on Tuesday at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. One of them is Ramdas Athalwale, the supremo of Maharashtrian Dalit outfit, Republican Party of India. The other four Dalits belong to the BJP. They include Arjun Ram Meghwal, Ajay Tamta, Ramesh Jigajinagi and Krishna Raj.
The richest of all the new Dalit faces is Ramdas Athawale with declared assets worth almost Rs 4 crore. Athawale also owns close to 13 acres of acquired and inherited agricultural land in the districts of Sangli and Thane in Maharashtra. Athawale owns a bungalow in Bandra and two other houses in Mumbai in addition to a couple of commercial buildings in Thane and Sangli. His penchant for property is further buttressed by his foray into real estate in the National Capital Region (NCR) as well, where the newly appointed Dalit minister owns two houses— one in Gurgaon and the another in West Delhi’s Mahavir Enclave.
The other Dalit ‘crorepatis’ in the list include Krishna Raj, BJP MP from Shahjahanpur, and Ramesh Jigajinagi, BJP MO from Bijaur. Krishna Raj and Jingajinagi are worth close to Rs 2 crore and Rs 9 crore respectively. In fact, Krishna Raj, along with her husband and children, holds 26 acres of agricultural land in UP in addition to many houses and bungalows in Ghaziabad and Shahjahanpur.
Meanwhile, Jigajinagi, BJP’s Dalit face in Karnataka, owns 154 acres of agricultural land in the state with his children. In addition to this, he has four houses in upmarket localities of Bengaluru.
It’s not just the dalits, but even the tribal faces inducted by Modi in his council are part of the multi-millionaire club. The two new tribal ministers, Faggan Singh Kulsate and Bhabhor Sumanbhai, are worth Rs 2 crore each.
While Modi’s cabinet may look loaded with cash rich Dalits and Tribals ministers. They, however, make up just a fraction of this Rs 150 crore club. The most wealthist among the new ministers is MJ Akbar. The former editor is worth Rs 45 crore and, among other properties, owns a swanky house in South Delhi’s upmarket Maharani Bagh. Not far behind Akbar are two BJP MPs from Rajasthan, Vijay Goel and PP Choudhary, both of whom are worth Rs 35 crore and Rs 30 crore respectively.
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