A watchman earns a meagre salary, sometimes as low as Rs 1,500 a month yet the leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), many of them millionaires, haven’t thought twice before appropriating the tag for political campaigning.
One such ruling party leader to appropriate the title is the Finance Minister in the Narendra Modi government, Arun Jaitley. ‘Chowkidar’ on social media, the minister’s wealth resembles that of a mid-level prince.
Going by the declaration made by Jaitley on 31st March 2018, his movable assets including vehicles, gold, jewellery and bank balance amounts to approximately Rs 33 crore.
He owns two Mercedes cars and also possesses gold weighing around 3.15 kilograms (Rs 82.2 lakh), silver weighing over 15 kilograms (Rs 6.06 lakh) and diamonds worth more than Rs 45 lakh.
Additionally he has a bank balance of Rs 1.58 crore, and has deposited Rs 17 crore in company deposits.
The market value of Jaitley’s immovable assets including land, commercial and residential properties amount to Rs 35.6 crore. These immovable assets include six residential properties — three in Delhi, one in Gurgaon, one in Gandhinagar and one in Amritsar.
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He has no liabilities, per the declaration.
Jaitley owns more in the form of just diamonds than what a person working as a chowkidar at one of his six houses would earn in a lifetime. Prefixing ‘chowkidar’ on your social media profile is not part of the job description of an actual chowkidar but hard work for little pay is.
Also Read: 12 Kg Gold, Mercedes, Crores in Bank: Self-Proclaimed Chowkidar Kirron Kher In 2014