'81% winning candidates in Bihar polls are crorepatis'

NEW DELHI: A detailed analysis of affidavits of 241 winning candidates in Bihar Assembly elections shows that 194 (81 per cent) of them have assets in crores. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is among the major political parties with maximum number of crorepatis followed by Tejashwi Yadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)— single-largest party— and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal-United (JDU). The number of crorepatis in this year's election was higher than the 2015 Bihar Assembly polls when 162 (67 per cent) winning MLAs had declared their assets in crores.

Bihar Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) revealed the fact after analysis of the self-sworn affidavits of 241 out of 243 winning candidates in the polls. The result of the three-phase election in the state was declared on Wednesday early morning after a more than 20-hours rigorous counting of ballots. The details of two winning candidates were not mentioned by the ADR in its report.

A total of 65 (89 per cent) out of 73 winning candidates from BJP have declared assets worth more than Rs 1 crore followed by 64 (87 per cent) out of 74 from RJD, 38 (88 per cent) out of 43 from JD (U) and 14 (74 per cent) out of 19 from Congress.

The average of assets per winning candidates is Rs 4.32 crore, the report mentions, adding the average of assets noted in 2015 Bihar Assembly polls was Rs 3.02 crores.

Among major parties, the average assets per winning candidates for 74 RJD winning candidates is Rs 5.92 crores, 19 Congress winning candidates is Rs 5.18 crores, 43 JD(U) winning candidates is Rs 4.17 crores, and 73 BJP winning candidates have average assets worth Rs 3.56 crores.

RJD's Anand Kumar Singh with over Rs 68 crore is among the top three winning candidates with high assets followed by the Congress's Ajit Sharma (over Rs 43 crore) and the RJD's Vibha Devi (over Rs 29 crore).

RJD MLA Ramvriksh Sada, with over Rs 70,000 in assets, is among the top three winning candidates with the lowest assets followed by CPI(ML)(L) MLA Gopal Ravidas (over Rs 1 lakh) and another CPI(ML)(L) MLA Manoj Manzil (over Rs 3 lakh).

Twenty winning candidates have declared liabilities of Rs 1 crore and above, and the details of the top three winning candidates.

As per the report, 82 (34 per cent) winning candidates have declared their educational qualification to be between 5th pass and 12th pass, while 149 (62 per cent) winning candidates have declared having an educational qualification of graduate and above.

There are nine winning candidates who are literate and one winner candidate is diploma holder. The report mentions that 115 (48 per cent) winning candidates have declared their age to be between 25 and 50 years while 126 (52 per cent) winning candidates have declared their age to be between 51 and 80 years. Out of 241 winning candidates analysed, 26 (11 per cent) winning candidates are women. In 2015, out of 243 MLAs, 28 (12 per cent) MLAs were women. (IANS)

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