Three ministers from the South have the highest liabilities among the 71 newly-appointed ministers in the Central government, according to an analysis by National Election Watch (NEW) and the nonprofit Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). Andhra Pradesh’s MP from Guntur, Dr. Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani, tops the list with liabilities amounting to over Rs 1038 crore. Karnataka’s HD Kumaraswamy (Mandya) and V Sommana (Tumkur) are behind him , with liabilities of more than Rs 82 crore and Rs 22 crore respectively. Pemmasani and Kumaraswamy also feature among the top three MPs with the highest assets, with the former again topping the chart at assets worth more than Rs 5,705 crore, while the latter comes third with about Rs 217 crore. Among the 71 ministers, 19 are battling serious criminal charges with Bandi Sanjay Kumar of Telangana facing the highest number of such serious charges, including crimes against women. Suresh Gopi, BJP’s lone MP from Kerala, faces the fifth highest number of serious charges.
Eleven out of 71 ministers in the new council of ministers have declared their educational qualification to be 12th standard while 57 ministers have declared having an educational qualification of graduate or above. Out of these, 14 ministers have a basic university degree, while 10 have professional graduate degrees, with specialised education in fields like law, engineering, or medicine.
With even higher qualifications, 26 ministers have post-graduate degrees, and seven have doctorates.