It's raining crores on our Lok Sabha candidates!

Over 900 of the 3,300 candidates for the first five phases of the Lok Sabha polls are crorepatis, with Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani topping the list and Karnataka ranking second among states having crorepati aspirants.

The first phase of polling was held on April 7 and the fifth phase is on April 17, when states like Karnataka go to polls. The nine-phase polling will end on May 12 and the counting of votes will be on May 16.

According to Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW), there are 3,355 candidates in fray and they analysed the affidavits of 3,305. Out of these, 921 candidates have assets worth more than Rs 1 crore. Nilekani has declared assets worth Rs 7,770 crore, while other prominent crorepatis are Naveen Jindal (Congress), Praful Patel (NCP), R Prabhakara Reddy (JD-S), V Balakrishnan (AAP), H D Kumaraswamy (JD-S), Shatrughan Sinha (BJP) and Supriya Sule (NCP).

The election watchdogs said 162 (84 per cent ) of 193 Congress candidates, 149 (74 per cent) out of 202 BJP candidates, 86 (43 per cent) out of 200 AAP candidates and 66 (32 per cent) of 207 BSP candidates have declared assets worth more than Rs 1 crore. Maharashtra has the highest number of 129 crorepati candidates followed by Karnataka (118) and Uttar Pradesh (117).

On the criminal side, the ADR and NEW said 557 candidates (17 per cent) have declared criminal cases against themselves. Forty-five (23 per cent) Congress candidates, 68 (34 per cent) BJP candidates, 31 (16 per cent) AAP candidates and 38 (18 per cent) BSP candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits.

Of these, 328 have serious criminal cases against them.