Meet Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani: Richest minister in Modi cabinet with net worth of 5,700 crore
Pemmasani and Scindia were the only two to be sworn in as ministers among the top 10 richest winners in the Lok Sabha polls.
Dr. Chandra Sekhar Pemmasani, an MP of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), was the richest candidate to contest the Lok Sabha polls. He was sworn in as a minister on Sunday.
Pemmasani’s election affidavit showed his family assets at Rs.5,705 crore. While his own net worth was Rs.2,388 crore, his wife Sriratna Koneru Rs.2,324 crore, and his son and daughter had Rs.496 crore each.
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Pemmasani and his family are major shareholders in various companies, including Go4Funding, Pemmasani Huffman Investments, Pemmasani Interests, and Aspen Publishing. He is also the founder and CEO of UWorld, an online learning platform.
Pemmasani was also involved in charity activities through the Pemmasani Foundation in Dallas, including providing medical facilities for NRIs without insurance, digging borewells, setting up reverse osmosis water supply plants, and setting up overheard tanks to mitigate drinking water scarcity in Palnadu, back home in Andhra.
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Pemmasani came from an agrarian family in Burripalem village near Tenali in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district. His father, a TDP leader, later moved to Narasaraopet town where he ran a hotel business.
He studied in a Telugu-medium government school and came 27th in the Andhra Pradesh medical entrance (EAMCET) exam in 1993-94, according to a report by The Print. After getting his MBBS degree from Osmania Medical College, Hyderabad, he went to the US where he completed his post-graduation studies from Geisinger Medical Centre, Pennsylvania.
Pemmasani defeated YSRCP’s Kilari Venkata Rosaiah, by a margin of over 3.4 lakh votes.
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Among the ministers with a cabinet rank, Jyotiraditya M. Scindia has the highest net worth at Rs.484 crore. He has the sixth highest assets among the winning Lok Sabha MPs.
Pemmasani and Scindia were the only two to be sworn in as ministers among the top 10 richest winners in the Lok Sabha polls, according to a Moneycontrol report.
The BJP-led NDA secured 293 seats out of 543. The majority mark in the lower house is 272.
