Dharmshala: Brij Behari Lal Butail an INC MLA from Palampur is the richest MLA in the newly constituted Himachal Vidhan Sabha with 169 crore of assets under his belt, followed by Balbir Singh Verma who won as Independent from Chopal in Shimla. Balbir joined Congress later. Verma has 41 crore of declared assets.
Newly elected CM Vir Bhadra Singh reduced to the 4th position in the list with 33 crore figure. These statistics were released at Dharmshala by the representatives of ADR (National Election watch)
ADR’s representative Mrs. Abha Baiya said here on today that Brij Behari Lal Butail an INC MLA from Palampur has declared the highest increase in assets of Rs 77.29 crore. His assets have grown from Rs. 91.92 crore in 2007 to Rs 169.21 crore in 2012.
Assets of Anil kumar, son of former Central Communication minister Pt. Sukh Ram (an INC MLA from Mandi) have increased by Rs 26.59 crore, from Rs 3.11 crore in 2007 to Rs 29.70 crore in 2012. Assets of G.S. Bali (INC, won from Nagrota) have risen by Rs 21.03 crore, from Rs 3.81 crores in 2007 to Rs 24.85 crore in 2012. Rajiv Bindal, a re-elected BJP MLA from Nahan constituency has shown assets increase of Rs 4.82 crore, from Rs 1.60 crore in 2007 to Rs 6.42 crore in 2012.
Bumber Thakur an INC MLA from Bilaspur has declared the highest percentage increase in assets of 7463%, from Rs 1.35 lakh in 2007 to Rs 1.02 crore in 2012. Dr Rajiv Sanhjal a BJP MLA from Kasauli (SC) has shown a percentage increase in assets of 1936%, from Rs 1.53 lakh in 2007 to Rs 31.15 lakh in 2012. Rikhi Ram a BJP MLA from Jhanduta (SC) has shown his assets go up by 874%, from Rs 13.41 lakhs in 2007 to Rs 1.30 crores in 2012.
Only 3 MLAs have reported a decrease in assets in 2012 as compared to their corresponding value of assets in 2007. They are Govind Ram (29% reduction in assets, from Rs 65.66 lakh in 2007 elections to Rs 46.60 lakh in 2012) of BJP from Arki, Asha Kumari (33% dip in assets, from Rs 2.42 Crore in 2007 to Rs 1.62 Crore in 2012) of INC from Dalhousie and Mansa Ram (48% asset decrease, from Rs 1.69 crore in 2007 elections to Rs 88.64 Lakhs in 2012).
There are a total of 44 crorepati MLA’s including 26 Congressmen.
Another official of the organization Ramesh Mastana said that out of the 68 newly elected MLAs, 14 MLAs or 21% have declared criminal cases against them. In 2007 assembly elections, 26 MLAs or 39% MLAs declared criminal cases against themselves. Amongst all the major parties, INC has 10 (28%) MLAs out of 36 whereas BJP has 3 (12%) out of 26 MLAs who have declared criminal cases against themselves.
MLAs with Serious Criminal Cases: Out of these 68 MLA with declared criminal cases, 5 have declared serious criminal cases like kidnapping or abducting, abetment of suicide, forgery etc
The top 3 newly elected MLAs who have declared serious criminal cases are Vinay Kumar of INC from Sri Renukaji constituency with charges of abetment of suicide, Ravinder Singh Ravi of BJP from Dehra constituency with charges related to kidnapping and Anirudh Singh of INC from Kasumpti constituency with charges related to theft.
He said that 82% MLAs (56 out of 68) have a graduate or a higher educational qualification in the Himachal Pradesh legislative assembly of 2012. 7 are just High school pass, 5 are class 12 pass, 23 are graduates, 14 are Graduate Professional, 18 are post graduates and just one Dhani ram Shandil of congress from Solan has a Doctorate degree. 3 out of 68 (4%) newly elected MLAs are women. In 2007, 5 or 7% MLAs were women .18 MLAs out of total 68 are more than 61 years of age.
Arvind Sharma is an award winning bi-lingual journalist with more than 20 years of experience.
He has worked with Divya Himachal, Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhasker, Vir Partap, Ajit and PTI.
In 2010, he was conferred the Himachal Kesri journalism award. He reports on the Tibetan Government in Exile, politics, sports, tourism and other topics. He lives in Dharamshala.
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