New Delhi : Among the 3 candidates who won this year’s Lok Sabha elections with the least assets (combined of immovable and immovable assets), the first 2 are from West Bengal. This information was found in the detailed report released by the Association for Democratic Reform (ADR) on Thursday about the newly elected Lok Sabha members. The two newly elected MPs with the least wealth are BJP’s Jortimoy Singh Mahato of Purulia (total wealth of Tk 5 lakh 95 thousand) and Trinamool Congress’s Mithali Bagh of Arambagh (total wealth of Tk 7 lakh 85 thousand).
According to the ADR report, out of 543 candidates who won this year’s Lok Sabha elections, 251 have cases related to criminal offences. Most of them belong to BJP. Out of 240 newly elected BJP MPs, 94 have criminal cases against them. The number is 21 in case of Congress. The number of winning candidates accused of criminal cases is increasing every election. In 2009 this number was 162. Last year 2014 and 2019 it increased to 185 and 233 respectively. The report claims that 27 winning candidates have already been convicted in court. This list contains the winning candidates of various parties including Congress, BJP. One of these candidates is Rahul Gandhi of Congress. A murder case is going on in the court against the four winning candidates. One of these four is Jagannath Sarkar, the BJP candidate who won from Ranaghat. A case of attempted murder is ongoing against 27 winning candidates. Outgoing Union Cabinet member Shantanu Thakur is among them.
ADR has prepared this report on the basis of the affidavit required to be submitted while running as a candidate for the Lok Sabha elections. While submitting the nomination paper, the candidate has to state various information including his assets, criminal cases, amount of assets, educational qualification in the affidavit. The election commission published the affidavit on its website after submission. This system is for voters to get detailed information about their candidates.
Reviewing the assets of the winning candidates, the report noted, the number of millionaires among the winning candidates will increase. Out of 543 people, 503 (93 percent) have wealth of more than one crore rupees. 58 percent of the candidates who won the 2009 Lok Sabha polls were millionaires. It increased to 82 and 88 percent in the 2014 and 2019 polls respectively. The richest winning candidate in this year’s Lok Sabha elections is Telugu Desam Party’s Chandrasekhar Pemasani in Guntur constituency of Andhra Pradesh (total wealth of Rs 5,705 crore). Konda Vishveshwar Reddy of BJP from Chivala constituency in Telangana is in second place (Rs. 4,568 crore). BJP’s Naveen Jindal from Haryana’s Kurukshetra is in third place (Rs. 1,241 crore).
