Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar expanded his Cabinet by inducting 31 new ministers days after he parted ways with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to rekindle ties with the Mahagathbandhan including Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).
According to an analysis of the criminal and economic backgrounds of the new ministers, 84 per cent of them are crorepatis and 53 per cent have serious criminal cases against them. The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) released its report on criminal, financial, educational and gender details of the new ministers of the Bihar cabinet based on the affidavits submitted by the candidates prior to the 2020 Assembly elections, Bihar legislative council elections and by-elections conducted thereafter.
Criminal background
As many as 23 out of 31 ministers have criminal antecedents. Seventeen of them are accused in serious criminal cases. Members from the RJD have the highest number of criminal cases – 17 have declared criminal cases and 11 have declared serious criminal cases. Four ministers of the JD(U) have declared criminal cases and three of them are accused under serious cases.
Offences that are described as serious are the ones that attract a maximum punishment of 5 years or more and are non-bailable. Electoral offences like bribery are serious cases as are offences related to loss to exchequer, Offences that are mentioned in Representation of the People Act (Section 8), Offences under Prevention of Corruption Act, crimes against women and offences that are assault, murder, kidnap, rape related.
At least four ministers have murder-related charges against them. These include RJD’s Surendra Prasad Yadav who has 2 charges related to Attempt to murder (IPC Section-307), RJD leader and Deputy CM Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and his brother Tej Pratap Yadav have 1 charge related to Punishment for murder (IPC Section-302) each. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has 1 charge related to Murder (IPC Section-302) and another related to Attempt to murder (IPC Section-307). None of the ministers have been convicted in any of these cases.
It is worth mentioning that the case against Nitish dates back to a 1991 murder in a village for which Nitish, along with five others, were named as accused. Tejashwi Yadav’s name has also cropped in alleged money laundering cases that dogged him through his first tenure as deputy CM.
Financial and educational background
As many as 27 ministers are crorepatis. The minister with the highest declared total assets is RJD’s Samir Kumar Mahaseth from Madhubani constituency with assets worth Rs. 24.45 crores. He owns a banquet hall business in Patna.
CM Nitish Kumar’s self-income is Rs 90,350 per annum and he is a graduate professional while Deputy CM Tejashwi earns over 2 lakhs per annum and is a class 8th pass after which he dedicated himself to playing cricket.
Seven ministers have completed schooling while two have earned doctorates and 22 are at least a graduate.
Out of 32 ministers, only three are women – 50-year-old Sheela Kumari from Phulparas, Leshi Singh (46 years) from Dhamdaha and Anita Devi (50 years) from Nokha.
A total of 17(or 53 per cent) ministers have declared their age to be between 30-50 years while 15 (47 per cent) ministers have declared their age to be between 51- 75 years, according to the ADR analysis.
