Four of the 48 elected members of parliament (MPs) from Maharashtra have assets worth more than Rs100 crore.
The analysis of their self-declared affidavits by Maharashtra Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms shows Nationalist Congress Party’s Satara MP Udayanaraje Bhosale (the 13th direct descendant of King Shivaji) is the richest, with assets worth ₹199 crore, followed by Supriya Sule (Baramati, NCP) at ₹141 crore. Ranjitsinh Naik Nimbalkar (Madha, BJP) has assets worth ₹128 crore and Shrirang Barne (Maval, Shiv Sena) has properties worth ₹102 crore.
All Maharashtra MPs have assets in crores, with Jalgaon’s BJP MP Unmesh Patil ( ₹1.23 crore) lowest on the list. Maharashtra has only four MPs with assets worth less than ₹2 crore. Twenty-five MPs have declared assets worth more than Rs10 crore. The average worth of the assets declared by Maharashtra MPs is ₹23.04 crore.
Naik Nimbalkar tops the list of 10 MPs with highest liabilities. He owes ₹89.63 crore, followed by Sudhakar Shrangare (Latur, BJP) ₹10.02 crore, Pritam Munde (BJP, ₹9.88 crore) and Navneet Rana (Amravati, independent) ₹7.06 crore.
Twenty-eight MPs (58%) have criminal cases against them, while 15 (31%) have serious cases. Serious criminal cases include top five crimes such as murder, attempt to murder, dacoity and criminal intimidation, among others. The BJP and Shiv Sena have six and five members with serious criminal cases pending against them. The parties won 23 and 18 seats, respectively.
“It is really a worrying factor as the rise in the number of MPs across the country with criminal cases has been significant, from 30% in 2009, 34% in 2014 to 43% in 2019. Similarly, the jump in serious criminal cases against them is nine per cent this time, against the average rise of three per cent every five years. This shows that politicians with money and muscle power are making it to Parliament and even parties give importance to winnability over clean character,” said Anil Verma of ADR.
{{/usCountry}}“It is really a worrying factor as the rise in the number of MPs across the country with criminal cases has been significant, from 30% in 2009, 34% in 2014 to 43% in 2019. Similarly, the jump in serious criminal cases against them is nine per cent this time, against the average rise of three per cent every five years. This shows that politicians with money and muscle power are making it to Parliament and even parties give importance to winnability over clean character,” said Anil Verma of ADR.
{{/usCountry}}Seven MPs have declared their annual income as more than ₹1 crore, while disclosing the details of the Income Tax Returns they filed for the financial year 2017-18. Sule tops the chart with an annual income (including that of spouse and dependents) of ₹9.07 crore, followed by Ranjitsinh Naik Nimbalkar ( ₹6.07 crore) and Sudhakar Shrangare ( ₹2.81 crore).
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