New Delhi, September 3
The Prime Minister and his Council of Ministers today made their assets, liabilities and business interests of their spouses and dependents public. The details volunteered by the ministers, barring 18 who are yet to file their declarations, were posted on the PM’s website (pmindia.nic.in) and made available in the ‘Right to Information’ section.

The then Cabinet Secretary had written to all the ministers in June with the request that details be submitted by August 31. The letter had drawn attention to the code of conduct for ministers and sought details of employment also of their spouses and dependents. The declaration of assets by ministers has been an annual exercise for the last two years.

The details did throw up some surprises. Union Agriculture Minister, Sharad Pawar, who is often described in the media as the country’s richest politician, declared assets worth Rs 12 crore while a relatively junior minister, Kamal Nath, declared assets worth a whopping Rs 263 crore with interests in some 25 companies.

Defence Minister A K Antony turned out to be the poorest of them all, declaring assets worth just Rs 1.82 lakh while his wife, Elizabeth, an officer in a semi-government concern, owns assets nearly worth Rs 40 lakhs including property in Kerala and a second-hand Wagon R car.

As per the PM's declaration, he has a residential house in Chandigarh’s Sector 11, the estimated market value of which is said to be Rs 90 lakh. He also has a flat in Delhi's Vasant Kunj valued at Rs 88.67 lakh. His wife Gursharan Kaur has over Rs 11 lakh in a savings account. The PM also has term and bank deposits in various banks totalling around Rs 3.22 crore. His only car is a 1996 model Maruti 800. Most of his personal wealth is his life-long salary from various posts including high-paying jobs at the World Bank and as the Reserve Bank of India Governor.

Among senior ministers, the Home Minister P Chidambaram's assets are valued at Rs 11 crore while his wife Nalini, a Supreme court lawyer, declared assets of Rs 12 crore. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's assets totaled Rs 1.8 crore. Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar's assets amounted to Rs 12 crore including his shares in more than a dozen cooperatives or companies whereas External Affairs Minister, S M Krishna's assets totaled to Rs 22.15 crore. Among the other affluent ministers is Praful Patel. He and his wife have declared assets worth Rs 100 crore. This includes Rs 87 crore worth of property, cash and jewellery worth Rs 9 crore and Rs 4.16 crore worth of shares.

Scion of the Gwalior royal family Jyotiraditya Scindia has assets of Rs 27 crore but this valuation does not apparently include the vast tracts of land and ancestral property owned by the family in and around Gwalior.

A couple of weeks ago, the Prime Minister had taken strong exception to a remark in Parliament by BJP’s Murli Manohar Joshi on his personal integrity and challenged “All I can say is that if any wrongdoing has been done by me, I invite the Leader of the Opposition to look at my property which I may have accumulated in the last 41 years, my members of my family".