Tamil Nadu’s Sivaganga is witnessing face-off between third and 10th richest candidates

New Delhi:

In the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls, the gap between the richest and poorest candidates was as high as Rs 716 crore. To make matters worse, the gap is basically the assets declared by the richest candidate, as the poorest candidate claims a net worth of just Rs 320 Cr.

The Association for Democratic Reform analyzed 1,618 of the 1,625 candidates running on Friday, 10 of whom declared zero assets. The analysis revealed that 450 candidates, or 28 per cent of the total, werecrorepatis with assets worth over Rs 1 crore.

The richest candidate is Congress MP Nakul Nath, the sitting MP from Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh, who has declared assets worth Rs 716 crore. Mr Nath, son of former chief minister Kamal Nath, won the party’s lone seat in the state in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

The Congress leader was followed by AIADMK’s Ashok Kumar, who announced an allocation of Rs 662 crore. Mr Kumar is campaigning from Erode in Tamil Nadu.

In third place is the BJP’s Dhevanathan Yadav, whose assets are worth Rs 304 crore. Mr Yadav is campaigning in Tamil Nadu’s Sivaganga constituency, where the incumbent MP is Karti Chidambaram of the Congress party. Mr Chidambaram ranks tenth with a net worth of Rs 96 crore.

Mala Rajya Lakshmi Shah of the Bharatiya Janata Party from Tehri Garhwal in Uttarakhand is ranked fourth with a net worth of Rs 206 crore, followed by Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh Majid Ali of the Bharatiya Janata Party, whose net worth is Rs 1.59 billion.

On the other hand, apart from the 10 candidates who have declared zero assets, there is Ponraj K, an independent candidate from Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu, who said he has assets worth Rs 320 Cr.

Slightly better off are independent candidates Kartik Gendlaji Doke and Suri from Ramtek constituency in Maharashtra and Chennai North constituency in Tamil Nadu respectively. Suriyamuthu, their declared assets were Rs.500.