Lok Sabha polls: These states have the most crorepati candidates

Now that the first phase of India’s Lok Sabha elections are underway, let’s take a look at the financial positions of the candidates that are standing for the elections.

The National Election Watch (NEW) and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) analysed the self-sworn affidavits of candidates who are contesting in the 2014 Elections. Based on their analysis, out of the 1,391 candidates analysed , 397 (29 percent) are crorepatis. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the highest percentage of crorepati candidates emerges from the Congress ( a whopping 82 percent), followed by the BJP (68 percent of their candidates are crorepatis).

“59 (82 percent) out of 72 candidates in INC, 54 (68 percent) out of 80 candidates in BJP, 36 (46 percent) out of 78 candidates in AAP and 34 (38 percent) out of 89 candidates in BSP and 83 (15 percent) out of 549 Independent candidates have declared assets worth more than Rs. 1 crore,” said ADR in its study.

INC refers to the Indian National Congress, BJP refers to the Bharatiya Janta Party, AAP refers to the Aam Aadmi Party and BSP refers to Bahujan Samaj Party.

Take a look at the chart below.

The chart shows the absolute number of crorepati candidates contesting in the elections in various states.

Haryana has the maximum number of crorepati candidates (92), followed by Uttar Pradesh (65), Delhi (49) and Maharashtra and Kerala with 46 crorepatis. In contrast, Andaman and Nicobar Islands has the least number of crorepati candidates.

The story is a little different when you look at the share of crorepati candidates in the total number of candidates However, if one were to look at the percentage of crorepati candidates to the total number of candidates contesting from each state, Sikkim tops the list.

Sikkim tops the list with 67 percent of its candidates declaring assets worth more than Rs 1 crore. But that’s also because Sikkim is one of India’s smallest states, with only six candidates standing for the elections in total. Out of those six, four are crorepatis.

However, among the large states, UP has the highest percentage of crorepati candidates, followed by Haryana and Chattisgarh.

This story was first published on Firstbiz.com