87 RS members have commercial interests

New Delhi: Cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar and Bollywood stars Mithun Chakraborty and Jaya Bachchan are among 87 Rajya Sabha members who have declared financial interests, as per Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

ADR has analysed declarations made by 211 sitting members of the Upper House in the register of members interest. Of these, 124 have declared that they have no commercial or financial interest.

According to norms, declarations are made under five categories-- remunerative directorship, regular remunerative activity, shareholding of a controlling nature, paid consultancy and professional engagement, it said.

"The highest amount received from professional engagements has been declared by Sachin Tendulkar (Nominated) with total fees or remuneration received from professional engagements worth Rs 72.79 crore followed by K T S Tulsi (Nominated) with Rs 19.13 crore and Mithun Chakraborty (AITC, West Bengal) with Rs 16.93 crore," the ADR report said.

ADR is part of a nationwide campaign called National Election Watch (NEW) comprising more than 1200 NGOs.

Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi has declared receiving remuneration worth Rs 82.33 crore under 'regular remunerated activity', it said, adding the information for the report was procured through RTI.

"The highest amount received from regular remunerated activity has been declared by Abhishek Manu Singhvi (INC, Rajasthan) worth Rs 82.33 crore followed by Vijay Mallya (IND, Karnataka) with Rs 2.51 crore per annum and Yalamanchili Satyanarayana Chowdary (TDP, Andhra Pradesh) with Rs 1.68 crore as annual income," the report said.

The highest amount received from remunerative directorship has been declared by Mallya with Rs 8.81 crore per annum followed by Rajeev Chandrashekar with Rs 6 crore per annum and D Kupendra Reddy (JD(S), Karnataka) with Rs 3.24 crore, the report said.

Similarly, Shiv Sena's Rajkumar Nandlal Dhoot has declared controlling stakes in highest number of companies (31), followed by Sanjay Dattatraya Kakde in 30 and Vijay Darda in 19 companies, it said.

The highest value of benefits derived for all paid consultancy has been declared by Ashok S Ganguly with Rs 36 lakh followed by Tulsi at Rs 27.50 lakh and Narendra Kumar Kashyap with Rs 10.53 lakh, it said.

A total of 21 MPs with total assets worth more than Rs 10 crore have declared that they have no pecuniary interests.

"Four MPs with assets more than Rs 100 crore have declared no pecuniary interests. These MPs are T Subbarami Reddy (INC, Andhra Pradesh) with Rs 422.44 crore worth total assets followed by Arun Jaitley (BJP, Gujarat) with Rs 120.06 crore, Karan Singh (INC, NCT of Delhi) with Rs 116.43 crore and Mayawati (BSP, Uttar Pradesh) with Rs 111.64 crore worth of total assets," the report said.

Bachchan, Naresh Gujral, Vijay Goel, C P Thakur, Oscar Fernandes, Chandan Mitra, Nirmala Sitharaman, Sanjay Raut, Rekha and H K Dua are some other MPs who have declared pecuniary interests.

The ADR has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan for keeping a similar register of members' interest in the Lok Sabha.

"The issue of having private financial interests which come in conflict with the public interest must come out in the public domain and the issue of conflict of interest must be comprehensively addressed at the highest priority," ADR said in its letter.