Rich and ambitious: Meet the wealthiest candidates from AAP, Congress and BJP

This year, there’s no dearth of crorepati candidates contesting for the Lok Sabha Elections.

We’ve been seeing a bump-up in the values of the declared assets of candidates with nearly each phase of the mammoth voting exercise.

The Association for Democratic Reforms compiled a list of the richest candidates in the 2014 polls so far and the results are no surprise, at least in the number one spot.So far, with eight phases completed out of 10, leading the list of rich candidates is Congress’ Nandan Nilekani, with assets worth Rs 7,710 crore, according to ADR.

We present the top five candidates with the highest declared assets from the three main parties in the spotlight – the Congress, the Bharatiya Janta Party and Aam Aadmi Party.

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Here are the five richest candidates from AAP. (All figures in the charts are in rupees and provided by ADR)

Former Infosys Board Member V Balakrishnan is the richest candidate in the party. Balakrishnan, who quit Infosys on December 31 and joined AAP the next day, is fighting incumbent P C Mohan of the BJP, as well as Youth Congress wing chief Rizwan Arshad. Meera Sanyal is the second richest candidate in the party with assets worth Rs 50 crore. Before joining the party, Sanyal was the chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland.

With assets worth more than 36 crore, Prabhat Ranjan Das is the third richest candidate in the party. He is contesting from Bihar’s Darbhanga. According to a Times of India report, Das, a medical professional who completed his residency and higher studies in New York, had been based in the US for nearly two decades. Two years back, he returned home in Darbhanga where he has been offering free healthcare to deprived sections of the society through his “non-for-profit” organisation, the Dr Prabhat Das Foundation.

Next up are the five richest candidates from the BJP:

Gokaraju Ganga Raju is the richest candidate in the BJP with assets worth Rs 299 crore. Gangaraju is a cricket administrator and founder of the Asram Medical College in Eluru. A Hindu report notes that the BJP leader has been a chief patron of RSS-Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) activities in the coastal region for over a decade. Bollywood actress Hema Malini is the third richest candidate in the BJP with assets worth Rs 178 crore.

And finally, here are the richest candidates from the Congress party:

The richest candidate in the Congress party is, of course, former chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, Nandan Nilekani. He is also the richest candidate contesting this year’s poll. The second richest candidate in the party is Naveen Jindal, the chairman of Jindal Steel and Power, who declared assets worth more than Rs 300 crore.

Incidentally, the richest candidate from the Congress and AAP are former company officials – both used to work at Infosys.