The BJP led Maharashtra government has been skirting the issue of declaring ‘Assets & Liabilities’ of its Ministers, casting serious doubts on its claims of transparency. RTI activist Anil Galgali has received a list of 21 Cabinet and 13 Ministers of state, who have filed details of their assets and liabilities with the government but the latter has failed to declare these details in public domain.
In this list offered to him by General Administration Department names of two Cabinet and three Ministers of State are “missing”. Leading to the inference that out of 23 Cabinet Ministers, Eknath Shinde (Public Works-Govt Undertakings) and Dr Deepak Sawant (Public Health) have not filed details of their assets. While out of 16 Ministers of State, Sanjay Rathod (Revenue), Dadaji Bhuse (Rural Development) and Ravindra Waikar (Housing, Higher & Technical Education) have not bothered to file such details.
Galgali has been following up on the campaign of making public the details of movable and immovable properties of public servants, since the reign of erstwhile Congress led government. The then Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan had published only the names of Ministers, who filed details of their assets on the government website. His efforts with the present government to bring this information in public domain have remained unsuccessful. The incumbent government has not even bothered to give a proper reply to his queries. This is in stark contrast to working of Narendra Modi government at the centre, where each and every minister had filed details of his assets and liabilities with the government.
Galgali had urged Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, to declare details of all ministers assets and liabilities online but the Chief Minister’s Office has failed to clear the application file. “Since this new BJP government’s main agenda is transparency, now even they have refrained themselves from making their assets and liabilities in public domain,” said Galgali.
