Mamata Banerjee ‘poorest’ CM per ADR report, at Rs 15 lakh; the richest is...

West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee is once again India's ‘poorest’ chief minister, per an ADR report, with assets evaluated at just a little over Rs 15 lakh.

As per the report, Andhra Pradesh's N. Chandrababu Naidu is the richest chief minister with assets worth over Rs 931 crore, followed by Arunachal Pradesh's Pema Khandu at over Rs 332 crore, while Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah is ranked third with assets worth more than Rs 51 crore.

With Rs 55 lakh worth of assets, Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah is the second poorest in the list, while Kerala's Pinarayi Vijayan is the third with Rs 1.18 crore.

The report said the average asset per chief minister from the 28 state assemblies and 3 union territories stood at Rs 52.59 crore.

While India's per capita net national income (NNI) was approximately Rs 1,85,854 for 2023–24, the average self-declared income of a chief minister is thus Rs 13,64,310, around 7.3 times the average per capita income of Indians.

However, only two of the chief ministers made it to the billionaire's club — Naidu and Khandu.

Also, only two of the 31 chief ministers are female — and even that is a recent figure, with Arvind Kejriwal stepping down in Delhi on 15 September, to make way for Atishi Marlena.

Atishi is also the youngest leader of the lot at 38 years and the only one under 40. (The oldest is Kerala's Pinarayi Vijayan at 77.)

Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, meanwhile, lead the lists of chief ministers with criminal cases of varying degrees of seriousness against them. Telangana and Andhra have the most serious ones, while 18 of the CMs have a ‘clean’ background.

A lion's share of the chief ministers do hold graduate and postgraduate degrees — 24 out of the total of 31.

Curiously, the exceptions on the lower end of the educational scale include Hemant Soren of Jharkhand and Pinarayi Viyajan of Kerala (who have both just graduated class XII) and Vishnu Deo Sai of Chhattisgarh (class X) — yes, the very literate state of Kerala chose a less degreed leader, which perhaps goes to show that while education is certainly very important, there are other human attributes just as (if not more) crucial.

After all, Himanta Biswa Sarma of Assam and Mohan Yadav of Madhya Pradesh — both BJP leaders, surely coincidentally — hold doctorate honours and apparently specialise in nurturing divisive rhetoric and activities in their respective states.

How the various CMs see themselves is also interesting. Most list their professions as 'politician' or 'social work/social service' or list themselves by their designations — but also:

• Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu of Himachal Pradesh owns himself a 'pensioner, private contractor, self-employed and party leader';

• Haryana's Nayab Singh tacks on 'owner of a stone crusher' to his MLA and CM titles;

• Tripura's Manik Shah notes he is a dental surgeon and professor at Tripura Medical College, while (Dr) Pramod Sawant of Goa is self-styled as an 'ayurveda practitioner';

• and Bhajan Lal Sharma of Rajasthan has possibly the most varied and lengthy 'source of income' entry with being 'proprietor of Shri Krishna Kanhaiya and Company', drawing a salary from the railway ministry, as well as earning from rent and bank interest.

with PTI inputs