Why it helps to be a crorepati when you're contesting elections

You may have popular support in your favour, but one factor that can considerably improve your chances of winning is being rich.

A study of the financial assets declared by candidates in their affidavits to the Election Commission reveals that of our newly elected 541 MPs in the Lok Sabha, 442 of them are crorepatis.

The Association of Democratic Reforms which studied the data said that this means there has been a 22 percent rise in the number of crorepatis who will be in the Lok Sabha, given there were 300 multi-millionaires elected to victory during the previous elections.

In case you thought it didn’t make a difference if you are a crorepati, turns out it does.

Across all parties, the study said that it helped to have at least a crore in your bank balance and the chances of a crorepati winning an election was higher at 20 percent, as compared to a not-so-rich candidate when it drops down as low as 2 percent.

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[caption id=“attachment_85110” align=“aligncenter” width=“620”]  Graphic courtesy: ADR[/caption]

The study also said that of the 541 constituencies studied, 414 of the victorious candidates were among the three richest candidates contesting for that seat and in 159 cases they were the richest candidates.

The study found that average assets per winner for 281 BJP winners analysed was Rs 11.59 crores, while for the Congress the average assets per victorious candidate was Rs 16.71 crore.

And here are the 10 richest winners in this year’s election. Even the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi is a crorepati as per his affidavit submitted to the Election Commission: