Politics has earned a bad name in India, as most politicians enter politics not to serve the general mass, but to become super rich. Politics is now considered to be a game of money. Indian politicians are usually rich and they become many folds richer when they are in power. Indian politics no longer has place for poor leaders who really wanted to change the society with a better ruling government. Nowadays, while most of the MPs (Member of Parliament) are still simply dressed or may be wearing khadi, they are usually very affluent people, as it is thought that one needs to spend a lot of money to get a ticket to the elections. It is a fact that a majority (440 out of the 536) of MPs in the Lok Sabha are what we call ‘crorepatis’.
More interestingly, most of these crorepati MPs are from India current ruling party – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as it has the highest number of MPs in the Parliament.
As many as 235 BJP MPs out of the total 277 are crorepatis, accounting to 85 percent of richie-rich MPS. 35 out of the 44 MPs of the Congress party are crorepatis, accounting to 80 percent.
There are even small parties which have all crorepati MPs, such as CPI JD(S). JD(U), PDP RJD and TDP.
Currently, the wealthiest Lok Sabha MP is TDP’s Jayadev Galla from Guntur in Andhra Pradesh. He has property worth over Rs. 600 crore.
Moreover, MPs are known to multiply their riches many folds very quickly. In 2014, the re-elected members returned to the Lok Sabha with double or many folds more wealth.
As per the data of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), 165 of the re-elected MPs have disclosed an average increase of their assets by as much as 137%. One big example is veteran Bollywood actor turned politician – Shatrughan Sinha. Sinha is an MP from the BJP and disclosed the highest wealth rise, as his wealth grew by a whopping 778%. He had wealth worth Rs. 15 crore back in 2009, which increased to Rs. 131 crore in 2014.
