By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 25 Aug: According to a report recently released by Association of Democratic Reforms, all the three Rajya Sabha MPs from Uttarakhand are rich, with Kalpana Saini from Haridwar being the richest among them. As per the report, she owns property worth Rs 7.11 crores. Of the total property owned by her, she has movable property worth Rs 1.82 crores and immovable property worth Rs 5.29 crores. Rajya Sabha MP Naresh Bansal owns property worth Rs 4.34 crores, while Anil Baluni, who is also the BJP’s National Media In charge, owns property worth Rs 2.62 crores.
Among the state’s other politicians, Cabinet Minister Satpal Maharaj tops the list with assets worth Rs 87.34 crores under his belt. Cabinet Minister Rekha Arya is the second richest minister in with assets worth more than Rs 25.2 crores. Cabinet Minister Ganesh Joshi owns assets worth Rs 7.9 crore, while Prem Chand Aggarwal owns assets worth Rs 5.03 crores.
However, if we also include the MLAs they far out-beat the ministers. Independent and rather controversial MLA Umesh Kumar is stated to own assets worth Rs 54 crores. BJP MLA Trilok Singh Cheema, son of former MLA Harbhajan Singh Cheema, also owns property worth Rs 44 crores. MLA Kushal Singh Adhikari owns assets worth Rs 30 crores. MLA Sarbat Kareem Ansari owns assets worth Rs 14 crores while Haridwar Rural MLA Anupama Rawat, who is also daughter of veteran Congress leader Harish Rawat, owns assets worth Rs 13 crores. Roorkee MLA Pradeep Batra owns assets worth Rs 12 crores. Leader of the Opposition and Congress leader Yashpal Arya and MLA Shiv Arora are stated to own assets worth Rs 10 crores, each. In all, 58 out of 70 MLAs are crorepatis in Uttarakhand.
