Hyderabad News Desk: A recent report by two election watchdogs has highlighted the vast amount of wealth amassed by the MLAs in India with most of them being millionaires. The report compiled by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) & National Election Watch (NEW) has revealed that out of the 4001 MLAs assessed during the course of the report, a mere 3 of them own assets worth Rs 1000 crore and above.
Likewise, five MLAs own assets valued at Rs 500 crores to 1000 crores while 79 MLAs have assets worth Rs 100-500 crore, the ADR-NEW report said. Nearly 57 percent of the MLAs own Rs 1 crore to 10 crore while over 21 percent of the MLAs own assets ranging from Rs 10-100 crore, the report said. According to the report, the average Assets of MLAs from state assemblies is Rs 13.63 Crores.
Furthermore, the average assets of MLAs with declared criminal cases is Rs 16.36 Crores. As compared to this, the average assets of MLAs with no criminal cases is Rs 11.45 Crores, the report said.
Also read: India's richest 1% own more than 40% of total wealth: Oxfam
State with Highest Average Assets of MLAs: The state with the highest average assets per MLA is Karnataka (223 MLAs) with average assets of Rs 64.39 crores, followed by Andhra Pradesh (174 MLAs) with average assets of Rs 28.24 crores and Maharashtra (284 MLAs) with average assets of Rs 23.51 crores.
State with Lowest Average Assets of MLAs: The state with the lowest average assets of MLAs is Tripura (59 MLAs) with average assets of Rs 1.54 crores, followed by West Bengal (293 MLAs) with average assets of Rs 2.80 crores and Kerala (135 MLAs) with average assets of Rs 3.15 crores.
Billionaire MLAs: According to the ADR-NEW report, out of the 4001 MLAs analysed from State Assemblies, 88 (2%) are Billionaires.
State with Highest Percentage of Billionaire MLAs: 32(14%) out of 223 MLAs from Karnataka, 4 (7%) out of 59 MLAs from Arunachal Pradesh, 10 (6%) out of 174 MLAs from Andhra Pradesh, 12(4%) out of 284 MLAs from Maharashtra, 2(3%) out of 68 MLAs from Himachal Pradesh, 5(3%) out of 182 MLAs from Gujarat and 6(3%) out of 230 MLAs from Madhya Pradesh have declared assets worth more than Rs. 100 crores.
