Poll rights group Association for Democratic Reforms has found that after Prime Minister Narendra Modi inducted 36 new faces in his Council of Ministers, 33 ministers or 42% have criminal cases against them.
The ADR report, citing election affidavits of ministers, noted that of these 33 ministers, 24 have serious cases related to murder, attempt to murder and robbery.
Also, in its analysis, ADR found that around 90% members or 70 ministers of the new Union cabinet are millionaires, meaning that they have declared total assets amounting to over Rs 1 crore.
The proportion of Union ministers who have declared criminal cases against them has risen by 3 percentage points after the expansion.
Analysis by ADR in 2019, when the first cabinet was sworn in, showed that 39% of the 56 ministers then had declared criminal cases against themselves