Are you burdened by the ever-rising prices of all basic amenities?
Let us see – fuel prices, milk prices, vegetable and fruit prices, cereals, rice, flour, cooking gas, electricity, and so forth.
Just to put it into context – A simple white bread that cost 15 Rs is now selling at Rs.30
Let’s not even get started with taxes and what about your income?
Is it rising at par with the amount of money that one doles out on basic amenities?
How about your savings? What about investments? Are they giving you the returns you had hoped for?
Your children – are you being able to give them that toy, chocolates, chips, cold drinks, or let us get down to what is more important – education!
Are you spending sleepless nights or even counting the days until you get your salary?
Well, these are the tales and days of us mortal middle class, and let us not forget about the less fortunate than us, who toil each day, day after day, to earn pennies and then have to scratch their head at the prices of essentials that have hit the roof!
However, the politicians and chief ministers of this country do not have to worry about such mundane things. Their work is to uphold the law and give direction to the state and the central – they are the ones who have this laborious, fretful responsibility on their shoulders to run their respective states and the nation as a whole!
And yet, it is the chief ministers who are low and behold – nothing less than crorepatis! They enjoy the power, influence, and protection and thrive on it, and what do they pay in terms of taxes?
The Richy Rich
Now as per the list – we have Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy as India’s richest chief minister, as per Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) recent report. With over Rs 510 crore, Reddy, Andhra’s charismatic CM, sits in the top position on the list.
While the average assets of all CMs are worth Rs 33.96 crore.
Arunachal Pradesh’s Pema Khandu (Rs 163 crore) and Odisha’s Naveen Patnaik (63 crores) hold the second and third positions, respectively, in terms of the wealthiest CMs.
Mr Nitish Kumar and Kejriwal have assets worth Rs 3 crore (wow, even the AAP leader is a Crorepati)
The non-profit analysed the poll affidavits of 30 chief ministers in the country. It found that, barring Mamata Banerjee, all CMs are crorepatis.
Mamta Banerjee’s net worth is only Rs 15 lakh.
After a bit of research on Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy, this is what came up – he founded the Telugu newspaper Sakshi and a news channel with the same name. He is also the promoter of Bharathi Cements. He had been a successful businessman even before he joined politics after the demise of his father in a chopper crash. He owns cement plants, infrastructure and media channels.
In an interview, the MD of Bharati Cement, Ravinder Reddy, told Sakshi Post that Reddy is a research-oriented businessman. The company rose because of his leadership, he added.
His 2019 poll affidavit says he owns assets worth Rs 375 crore. He doesn’t own a vehicle, and his movable assets are worth Rs 339 crore.
In 2019, his wife, YS Bharathi Reddy, owned assets worth Rs 124 crore, out of which Rs 31 crore are immovable assets.
His two daughters own movable assets of Rs 11 crore each.
His 2018 income was Rs 25.89 crore.
He owns non-agricultural land worth Rs 8.42 crore, and his commercial buildings are valued at over Rs 14.46 crore. He has a property in Hyderabad, priced at Rs 12 crore.
Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu holds second place. With a declared asset worth over Rs 163 crore, Khandu tops the chart, followed by Congress candidate Lombo Tayeng whose wealth stood at Rs 148 crore a few years ago.
Points To Consider
- Out of the 30 esteemed Chief Ministers of the country, 29 are crorepatis.
- Thirteen of these have criminal cases registered against them.
- Four out of thirty Chief Ministers are not even graduates.
- Going by age, except Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu, all the rest are over forty. Khandu is now 39 years old.
- While the oldest is the Chief Minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan, who is 77 years old.
- Among the thirteen Chief Ministers against whom criminal cases are registered, Telangana’s Chandrasekhar Rao is at the forefront, with 101 cases registered against him.
But the real questions are –
- Where do they get so much wealth from?
- How much wealth did they declare or have at the time when they first entered politics?
- How much was the increment in their wealth after they joined politics?
- How much property did they have before, and how much did they have after joining politics or becoming MLA or any other political position?
- Since then, how much of their salary has been raised, and how many times of that is with them now?
- Why does the Income Tax Department position itself as a hawk keeping a close watch on the common person’s income, rent, petrol and other expenses, investments, savings etc.?
- Why is the ED so relaxed when it comes to elections when in reality, crores of rupees are spent like water?
- Why is even after such expense, they still remain wealthy, and there is no substantial decrease in their wealth?
- How is it that no politician has ever gone bankrupt?
Now there is something called RTI, Right To Information; try filing it – nothing ever comes out of this dark hole of the abyss!
When someone asks for information through RTI, in such cases, it is denied under the guise of secrecy. If you ask for information about their property or anything that has a significance that can S-H-A-K-E their political path, the information reaches them first.
Think about what they can do to the poor mortal who has dared to ask anything!
In Conclusion: As the saying goes, “the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer”; we can modify this to better suit this case – “in India, the CM’s get richer, and the commoner stares at an empty plate”!
