Uttar Pradesh: 33 Yogi Adityanath ministers, 359 MLAs fail to declare their assets

Thirty-three ministers of the Yogi Adityanath government and 359 members of the new Uttar Pradesh assembly have failed to declare their assets.

Thirty-three ministers of the Yogi Adityanath government and 359 members of the new Uttar Pradesh assembly have failed to declare their assets despite the chief minister’s repeated directions, a gazette notification issued by the state assembly secretariat shows.

Eighteen cabinet ministers, 11 ministers of state, and four ministers of state (independent charge) figure in the list defaulters, according to the gazette notification number 679/VS/Sansadiya/20(S)/2017 dated July 10, 2017.

The MLAs, who have not declared their assets, include Leader of Opposition Ram Govind Chaudhary (Samajwadi Party), Bahujan Samaj Party Legislature Party leader Lalji Verma and Congress Legislature Party leader Ajay Kumar Lallu.

The Uttar Pradesh Ministers and Legislators (Publication of Assets and Liabilities) Act, 1975, requires the ministers and members of the state assembly to declare their assets and liabilities within three months of assuming office or being elected as members of the state legislative assembly.

The act also requires them to declare the assets accrued by them after becoming ministers or legislators by June 30 every year.

Adityanath, his two deputy chief ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma, and two ministers of state Swatantra Dev Singh and Mohsin Raza are not members of either of the two houses of the state legislature. Hence, they are not covered under the act.

The chief minister ordered all his ministers to declare their income, movable, and immovable properties within 15 days an hour after he took oath on March 19. He asked them to submit their declarations to the CM secretariat.

After most of the ministers failed to declare their assets, Adityanath noted in a letter dated April 13 to his colleagues that they had not provided details about their moveable and immoveable assets.

“I hope you will provide the information in the next three days,” he said in the letter.

The long list of defaulters declared by the state assembly secretariat shows that most of the ministers did not comply with the directives of the chief minister.

Cabinet Ministers: Surya Pratap Shahi, Swami Prasad Maurya, Satish Mahana, Rajesh Agarwal, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, Dara Singh Chauhan, Dharam Pal Singh, SP Singh Baghel, Satyadev Pachauri, Jai Pratap Singh, Om Prakash Rajbhar, Brajesh Pathak, Chetan Chauhan, Srikant Sharma, Rajendra Pratap Singh (Moti Singh), Siddharth Nath Singh, Ashutosh Tandon and Nand Gopal Gupta ‘Nandi’.

Ministers of State: Gulabo Devi, Jai Prakash Nishad, Archana Pandey, Atul Garg, Ranvendra Pratap Singh (Dhunni Singh), Neelkanth Tiwari, Girish Chandra Yadav, Baldev Singh Aulakh, Manohar Lal Mannu Kori, Sandeep Singh and Suresh Pasi.

Ministers of state (independent charge): Anupama Jaiswal, Upendra Tiwari, Anil Rajbhar and Swati Singh.

Ministers who have declared their assets: Suresh Khanna, Ramapati Shastri, Laxmi Narai Chaudhary, Mukut Bihari, Suresh Kumar, Dharam Singh Saini and Jai Kumar Singh Jaiki.

Four MLAs who have declared their assets: Dinanath Bhaskar, Sharadvir Singh, Alka Rai and Savitri Katheria.