Mandya Congress candidate Venkataramane Gowda, wife have assets of Rs 633 crore

Mandya Congress candidate Venkataramane Gowda, also known as ‘Star Chandru’, is the richest among several candidates who submitted affidavits on Monday ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

With assets valued at Rs 622.97 crore and an annual income of Rs 16.28 crore, Gowda overtook DK Suresh, the richest candidate in the 2019 elections.

At the other end of the spectrum, the BJP’s Mysore candidate Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar declared assets worth Rs 9.67 crore while the Congress’ Sowmya Reddy (Bangalore South) showed Rs 2.26 crore in the affidavit.

Venkataramane Gowda’s affidavit said that none of his assets came through inheritance. DK Suresh has nearly doubled his assets in the last five years to Rs 593.05 crore.

Incidentally, Gowda’s brother KH Puttaswamy Gowda is the second richest MLA in the state. As per the affidavit filed during the Assembly elections last year, the Gauribidanur MLA had assets worth Rs 1,267 crore, coming next to Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, the brother of Suresh.

In Chikkaballapur, Congress candidate Raksha Ramaiah declared assets worth Rs 169.32 crore while his opponent from the BJP Dr K Sudhakar added Rs 3.6 crore within one year, taking the total value of his assets to Rs 33.41 crore.

The figure shows that the former minister has doubled the amount from Rs 15.40 crore in 2018.

V Somanna, who filed his affidavit from Tumakuru, got richer by Rs 12.5 crore in less than a year. During the Assembly elections last year, he had declared assets worth Rs 48.23 crore, which have now gone up to Rs 60.78 crore.

PC Mohan, who is seeking re-election from the Bangalore Central constituency for the fourth time, put the worth of his assets at Rs 81.30 crore, up by Rs 5.75 crore compared to 2019. His annual income has grown from Rs 1.3 crore to Rs 2.9 crore.

Shreyas Patel, the Congress candidate from Hassan, declared assets of Rs 42.67 crore.

Yaduveer Wadiyar, a member of the erstwhile royal family of Mysore, declared his total assets at Rs 9.67 crore, almost all of it gold and jewellery. The BJP candidate’s affidavit said he has no immovable assets.

Congress’ Sowmya Reddy declared assets worth Rs 2.26 crore.

The former MLA, who lost the Jayanagar Assembly segment by a margin of 16 votes, seeks to wrest Bangalore South from the BJP which has maintained its dominance in the segment for 30 years.