At least six crorepatis figure among the 29 ministers in Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Cabinet. The richest minister is first-time JD(U) legislator Parveen Amanullah, wife of a senior IAS officer and daughter of the Babri Masjid cause champion Syed Shahabuddin.
Ms Amanullah, Bihar’s social welfare minister, has movable and immovable assets worth `2.94 crores and no loans to pay back, according to sources in the chief minister’s secretariat familiar with the details of assets furnished by all the ministers to Nitish Kumar. The wife of Cabinet secretary Afzal Amanullah, she contested the Assembly polls on a ticket of the ruling JD(U) in Sahebpur Kamal and won.
Egged on by Mr Kumar, all Bihar ministers have submitted to him details of their assets, which would be shortly put on the government website for public knowledge. After returning to power with a thumping majority, Mr Kumar had first asked the ministers on December 14 to submit their assets details before December 31. The process of “compiling” these details for the website has started, said officials.
Another first-time minister from the JD(U), Awadhesh Prasad Kushwaha, who holds the sugarcane industries portfolio, ranks second in the list of crorepati ministers with movable and immovable assets worth `2.83 crores and no loans to pay back, said the sources.
The four other crorepati ministers are transport minister Brishen Patel, with movable and immovable assets worth `1.72 crore and no financial liabilities, mines and geology minister Satyadev Narayan Arya (assets worth `1.67 crore and a loan of only `625 to pay back), rural development minister Nitish Mishra (assets worth `1.32 crore, and loans worth `20.68 lakhs to pay back), and tourism minister Sunil Kumar Pintu (assets worth `1.14 crore and loans worth `46,341 to pay back).
Sources said several ministers have furnished the particulars of their assets in great details, some even giving the number of cows and even revolvers and rifles they possess. The poorest minister is labour minister Janardan Singh Sigriwal of the BJP.