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An analysis of the wealth possessed by the members of both houses of the Parliament says on an average, a Lok Sabha MP has assets worth ₹20.47 crore and when it comes to the average assets owned by a Rajya Sabha MP, the amount is almost four fold — ₹79.54 crore.
According to the reports by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and BusinessLine’s analysis of affidavit data, as many as 269 MPs who hold the office currently — 34 per cent members of Lok Sabha MPs and 38 per cent of Rajya Sabha — own assets worth more than ₹10 crore.
Richest of the lot
The richest three MPs in both houses combined are Telangana Rashtra Samithi’s Bandi Partha Saradhi; YSR Congress Party’s Alla Ayodhya Rami Reddy (founder of Ramky Group of Companies); and Samajwadi Party’s Jaya Bachchan (actor). While Saradhi, who is also the Chairman of the pharmaceutical company Hetero Drugs, owns assets worth ₹5,300 crore, Reddy and Bachchan have assets worth ₹2,577 crore and ₹1,001 crore, respectively. Interestingly, all the three are members of the Rajya Sabha.
The three richest Lok Sabha MPs are Indian National Congress’ Nakul Nath and DK Suresh; and YSRCP’s Kanumuru Raghu Rama Krishna Raju. They own assets worth ₹660 crore, ₹338 crore and ₹325 crore, respectively.
Party-wise break-up
The ruling Bhartiya Janata Party, which has the majority in both Houses of the parliament, has the most number of MPs with assets worth more than ₹10 crores — 128 of them, making up almost half the number of MPs with wealth over ₹10 crore. While the INC has 41 of them, as many as 20 MPs from YSR Congress also fall under the category.
Interestingly, all the 16 MPs from TRS, 22 from Shiv Sena and eight from SP, in both Houses combined, have assets worth over ₹1 crore.
“Among the major parties, the average assets per MP for 85 BJP MPs analysed is ₹27.44 crore; 31 INC MPs have average assets of ₹50.09 crore; 13 AITC MPs have average assets worth ₹4.34 crore; nine YSRCP MPs have average assets worth ₹395.77 crore; seven TRS MPs have average assets worth ₹799.46 crore; four NCP MPs have average assets worth ₹118.71 crore; and 10 AAP MPs have average assets of ₹131.66 crore,” the ADR report that analysed Rajya Sabha members’ backgrounds stated.
Looking at States where the richest MPs belong — it was observed that Uttar Pradesh has the most of them at 40, both Houses combined. Maharashtra follows next with has 36 wealthy MPs, while Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have 23 and 20 of them, respectively.
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