Blooming assets. Bull run in the equity markets makes Amit Shah, wife richer by 62.84%

The assets of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and his wife Sonal grew by 62.84 per cent to ₹65.67 crore in the last five years, a comparison of affidavits filed with the Election Commission of India for Lok Sabha election has revealed

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While Shah’s assets (including those inherited) grew by 17.7 percent between 2019 and 2024, the assets of Sonal — a housewife — grew 215 per cent during this period.

Amit Shah, who describes his occupation as “farming” and “social activism”, is contesting for a second consecutive time from the Gandhinagar seat. Polling would be held here in the third phase on May 7.

For Sonal Shah, the biggest jump has been recorded in movable assets owned by her. These assets saw a three-fold jump from ₹5.3 crore to ₹22.46 crore. Most of this increase can be attributed to the quantum of listed and unlisted securities of various companies in her name. The ₹4.36 crore parked in shares by Shah’s wife in 2019 has now increased to ₹20 crore in 2024.

Investment plan

In comparison to his wife, the movable assets of Shah rose by 11.47 per cent. Sonal Shah owns one lakh shares of The Karur Vysya Bank Ltd, 40,000 shares in TV18 Broadcast Ltd, 50,000 shares of Canara Bank, 30,890 shares of Tata Steel, 20,000 shares of Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd, 30,000 shares of NCC Ltd, 17,500 shares of Sun Pharma Advanced Research Company Ltd, among other listed entities. She also owns 1,620 grams of gold and 63 carats of diamonds worth ₹1.1 crore.

Among the companies where Amit Shah owns 10,000 shares or more include Western India Shipyard Ltd, Suzlon Energy Ltd, NMDC Steel Ltd, Tata Teleservices (Mahindra) Ltd, The South Indian Bank, VIP Industries, Vision Organics, TARC Ltd, Prino Chemicals Ltd among others. The husband-wife duo has invested ₹37.47 crore in shares of listed and unlisted companies which is about 57 per cent of their total assets. Shah also owns over 900 grams of gold, 7 carats of diamonds and 25 kgs of silver, most of which are inherited.

Immovable assets

The value of immovable assets owned by Shah — which include agricultural land in Vadnagar in Mehsana district and Lilapur in Ahmedabad, non-agricultural land in Shilaj in Ahmedabad, Manasa in Gandhinagar, commercial and residential properties in Sola, Memnagar, Thaltej in Ahmedabad and Mansa and Sector-1 in Gandhinagar — rose by about 26 percent in the last five years. The value of immovable assets owned by Sonal Shah rose by 67 percent during this five year period.

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While Shah mentions in his affidavit that the “increase in value of total assets is mainly on account of appreciation in the value of price of respective assets,” the market price of a 677 square feet commercial property bought by him and his wife in 2019 at Sola in Ahmedabad city has zero appreciation, costing the same as it did five years ago (as per the affidavit).

“During the last five years, immovable assets of ₹1.52 crore comprising of one party office and a small piece of land in native village was only acquired,” Shah stated in his affidavit.