No house. No car. No land. According to his own sworn election affidavit filed in May 2024, the Prime Minister of India owns none of these, three things most middle-class Indian families consider basic markers of financial stability.
Since Indian election law requires candidates to disclose their assets under oath, Modi’s affidavits offer a rare, verifiable window into his personal finances, filed and re-filed at every election since he first entered electoral politics.
What the 2024 Affidavit Lists
Filed while nominating from Varanasi for the 2024 Lok Sabha election, Modi’s affidavit declared total assets of approximately Rs 3.02 crore, entirely in movable form. The breakdown includes:
Bank fixed deposits with the State Bank of India, totalling over Rs 2.85 crore, by far the largest single component. Four gold rings weighing 45 grams combined, valued at roughly Rs 2.67 lakh. Cash on hand of Rs 52,920. National Savings Certificates worth about Rs 9.12 lakh. No vehicles of any kind. No immovable property, land or house, listed at all.
The affidavit also confirms no pending criminal cases and no outstanding government liabilities.
How This Compares to Previous Filings
Tracking his declared assets across election cycles shows a gradual, modest increase: roughly Rs 1.65 crore in 2014, climbing to about Rs 2.5 crore in 2019, and reaching Rs 3.02 crore in 2024. That’s a slow, steady rise consistent with interest accumulation on fixed deposits and modest additional savings, not the kind of asset growth that would raise questions about undisclosed income.
One detail that’s changed: the 2019 affidavit listed a residential plot in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, among his assets. That plot doesn’t appear in the 2024 filing, meaning it was either transferred, sold, or gifted at some point between the two filings, though the public affidavit itself doesn’t explain which.
The Jashodaben Line
Election affidavits also require candidates to list a spouse’s assets, where applicable. Modi’s 2024 filing lists his wife’s assets as “not known,” reflecting the reality, covered in more detail in our separate article on Jashodaben Modi, that the two have lived entirely separate lives for decades and have no ongoing contact through which such information would even be available to him.
How This Compares to Other Politicians
For useful context: many sitting Indian ministers and members of Parliament declare assets running into tens or hundreds of crores, land holdings, multiple properties, and business interests being fairly common among wealthier political families. Against that backdrop, a sitting Prime Minister with roughly Rs 3 crore in assets, no property, and no vehicle stands out as genuinely unusual, whatever one makes of the broader political narrative built around it.
Why Affidavits Are Worth Taking Seriously, With One Caveat
Sworn election affidavits carry real legal weight; knowingly filing false information in one is a criminal offence under Indian law. That gives them more credibility than an off-the-cuff claim in a speech. The caveat is that affidavits capture only what the law requires to be disclosed, primarily bank balances, physical assets, and property, and don’t capture every dimension of a person’s financial position or lifestyle support, such as government-provided housing, security, and travel that come with the office itself and aren’t personal assets in the legal sense.
What Isn’t Counted, and Why It Matters
It’s worth being precise about what an affidavit like this does and doesn’t capture. As Prime Minister, Modi lives in an official government residence, travels with state-funded security, and uses government aircraft for official travel, none of which appears, or is meant to appear, as a personal asset on an election affidavit, because none of it is personally owned. This is standard practice across democracies, an official’s use of state resources for the duties of office isn’t the same as personal wealth, but it’s a distinction worth spelling out clearly, since a bare “Rs 3 crore in assets” headline can otherwise be read out of context by people unfamiliar with how these disclosures work.
The Salary Side of the Picture
Separately from declared assets, India’s Prime Minister draws a fixed government salary, historically a modest figure by the standards of comparable global leadership roles, alongside allowances tied to the office. Public reporting has periodically noted that Modi has directed portions of personal gifts and mementoes received in office toward public causes, including auction proceeds covered in our separate article on his gift-auction practice, rather than retaining them personally, a pattern that’s broadly consistent with the low personal-asset profile shown across his affidavits.
Bottom Line
Modi’s own sworn declarations paint a consistent picture across a decade of filings: modest, slowly growing bank savings, minimal personal property, and no real estate or vehicles in his own name. It’s a genuinely unusual asset profile for a national leader, one that’s legally documented rather than simply claimed, even though, like any affidavit, it captures only what the law specifically requires to be disclosed.
Disclaimer: This article is based on publicly available election affidavits and news reports listed below. It is written for general informational purposes and does not represent an official statement from the Government of India, the Election Commission of India, or the Prime Minister’s Office.
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