BJP leads in fielding richest candidates in Maha elections

Hyderabad: The BJP party leads in fielding the most crorepati candidates in the upcoming Maharastra assembly elections. The saffron party’s contesting team in 2019 election comprise 96% of crorepatis.

Ahead of the general elections, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 3112 out of 3237 candidates, who are contesting.

The report concluded that, among the major parties, the average assets per candidate for 162 BJP candidates is Rs. 23.58 crores, while for the 147 INC candidates is Rs 14.78 crores.

While the richest of all is BJP ‘s Parag Shah who has been fielded for Ghatkopar East constituency, his affidavit shows the total assets owned by the man is worth Rs 500 Crore . He is followed by another BJP candidate Mangalprabhat Lodha from Malabar hills whose is valued at Rs 441 crore . From the INC, the wealthiest candidate , as per the affidavit is Sanjay Chandrakant Jagtap, and his assets are valued at Rs 245 Crore.

Besides the wealth, the analyses that studied 3112 candidates found that 916 (29%) candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves. While in 2014 Maharashtra Assembly Elections, out of 2336 candidates analysed, 798(34%) had declared criminal cases against themselves.

And of the 916 candidates, 600(19%) have serious criminal cases booked against themselves and seven have faced imprisonment, which means convicts were given party tickets.

Interestingly, 176 of the 288 assembly constituency have been marked as ‘Red alert’. This means the constituencies with more than three contesting candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves. The offence includes attempt to murder( 307 IPC), cases related to murder (302 IPC), crime against women and cases related to rape (IPC section 376).

Also Read: https://newsmeter.in/t-subbarami-reddy-c-m-ramesh-are-the-richest-mps-in-the-upper-house/