Silver adds sheen to netas' assets, Sonia has 88 kilos

Silver has added sparkle to assets declared by many women leaders in the fray for the Lok Sabha elections, including biggies like Sonia Gandhi and Sushma Swaraj, as a spike in the price of white metal has pushed up their wealth.

The price of silver, also known as the poor man’s gold, has nearly doubled in the past five years and currently stands at nearly Rs 43,000 per kilogram.

An analysis of affidavits filed by some of the prominent candidates contesting the Lok Sabha polls reveal that many of them have silver assets, including jewellery and articles. The value of these items has grown considerably on the back of increased prices.

In most of these cases, silver assets owned by the leaders are their ancestral properties. The value of silver assets of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who is contesting from Rae Bareli, has surged by nearly Rs 21 lakh in the past five years.

She has 88 kg of silver and the value jumped to Rs 39.16 lakh this year from Rs 18.37 lakh in 2009, as per her election affidavits. The quantity remained unchanged from 2009.

Cine star Jaya Prada Nahata, who is fighting from UP on an RLD ticket, disclosed that 1.5 kg owned by her is now worth over Rs 69,000. This marks a significant rise from the earlier recorded value of her silver at Rs 30,000 in 2009.

Congress leader Chandresh Kumari Katoch, fighting the polls from Rajasthan, too has seen the value of her silver assets more than double to Rs 13.5 lakh. In 2009 and 2014, the total quantity of silver owned by her remained the same at 30 kg. 

As per the latest affidavit filed by BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, her silver assets increased to 5.5 kg, now worth over Rs 2.36 lakh, whereas she just owned about 400 gm in 2009.Congress leader Girija Vyas owns 2.5 kg silver valued at Rs 1.15 lakh.

Among others, Union Minister and Congress member Preneet Kaur mentioned in her 2014 affidavit that she has Rs 3 lakh worth silver. NCP leader and Union Minister Sharad Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule owns silver valued at Rs 4.3 lakh.