Yogi Adityanath ministers, MLAs fail to declare assets

Lucknow: Defiance is in the air and despite repeated warnings by UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, majority of his own ministers and legislators have not declared their assets.

A gazette notification by the state Assembly Secretariat shows that 18 Cabinet ministers, 11 ministers of state and four ministers of state with independent charge are defaulters, which means that 33 of 47 ministers have failed to declare their assets. Besides, the total number of legislators, including ministers, who have not declared their assets is 359.

The MLAs who have not declared their assets are Leader of Opposition Ram Govind Chaudhary (SP), BSP Legislature leader Lalji Verma and Congress Legislature leader Ajay Kumar Lallu. 

According to Uttar Pradesh Ministers and Legislators (Publication of Assets and Liabilities) Act, 1975, every member of the state Legislature need to declare assets and liabilities within three months of assuming office or being elected. 

Since Yogi Adityanath, two deputy chief ministers — Keshav Maurya and Dinesh Sharma — and two ministers — Swatantra Dev Singh and Mohsin Raza — are not members of the state Legislature yet, they are not covered by the Act.

A day after being sworn in as the chief minister, Mr Adityanath had directed his ministers and legislators to declare their assets within 15 days. Subsequent reminders were given by him in April and then in May, but the ministers, apparently, did not take him seriously enough.

The Cabinet ministers who defaulted include Surya Pratap Shahi, Swami Prasad Maurya, Satish Mahana, Rajesh Agarwal, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, Dara Singh Chauhan, Dharam Pal Singh, S.P. Singh Baghel, Satyadev Pachauri, Jai Pratap Singh, Om Prakash Rajbhar, Brajesh Pathak, Chetan Chauhan,  Rajendra Pratap Singh, Siddharth Nath Singh,   Ashutosh Tandon, Srikant Sharma, and Nand Gopal Gupta. The ministers of state are Gulabo Devi, Jai Prakash Nishad, Archana Pandey, Atul Garg, Ranvendra Pratap Singh, Neelkanth Tiwari, Girish Chandra Yadav, Baldev Singh Aulakh, Manohar Lal Mannu Kori, Sandeep Singh and Suresh Pasi.

The ministers of state with independent charge who defaulted include Anupama Jaiswal, Upendra Tiwari, Anil Rajbhar and Swati Singh.

Ministers who have declared their assets include Suresh Khanna, Ramapati Shastri, Laxmi Narain Chaudhary, Mukut Bihari, Suresh Kumar, Dharam Singh Saini and Jai Kumar Singh Jacky.

The four BJP MLAs who have declared their assets are Dinanath Bhaskar, Sharadvir Singh, Alka Rai and Savitri Katheria.