Richest candidates in the fray in Haryana polls

The upcoming Haryana Assembly elections 2019 on Oct. 21 will witness a battle between candidates who have declared assets worth Rs 325 crore and ones who have zero assets.

The richest candidate in the fray is Jannayak Janta Party's Rohtas Singh, who is contesting from Sohna constituency in Gurgaon district. Singh has declared assets worth Rs 325 crore. He has twice the amount of assets compared to the second richest candidate in the fray in the Assembly bypolls.

The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Captain Abhimanyu is the second richest candidate with declared assets worth Rs 170 crore. Abhimanyu is contesting the bypolls from Narnaund seat in Hisar district. He is followed by Congress candidate Sukhbir Kataria, the third richest candidate, with declared assets of Rs 106 crore.

Interestingly, Singh and Abhimanyu are among the top three candidates with liabilities of Rs 55 crore and Rs 35 crore, respectively. Haryana Lokhit Party candidate Gopal Kanda has the highest liabilities at Rs 78 crore.

Three candidates have declared zero assets in the Haryana Assembly elections. It includes RPI(A)'s Satbir Singh, who is contesting from Gharaunda constituency in Karnal district and two independent candidates -- Bijendra Kumar from Rai seat and Harpal from Kharkhoda (SC) seat in Sonipat.

A total of 1,168 candidates are in the fray for the 90-member Assembly in Haryana. An analysis of the self-sworn affidavits of 1,138 candidates by the Association for Democratic Reforms indicates that 481 or 42% of the candidates are crorepatis.

Among major parties, 79 (or 91%) out of 87 candidates analysed from the Indian National Congress, 79 (or 89%) out of 89 candidates analysed from the BJP, 62 (or 71%) out of 87 candidates analysed from the Jannayak Janta Party, 50 (or 63%) out of 80 candidates analysed from Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and 34 (or 40%) out of 86 candidates from the BSP, have declared assets worth more than Rs 1 crore.

The average of assets per candidate analysed in the Haryana Assembly elections is Rs 4.31 crore. In the 2014 Haryana Assembly elections, the average assets per candidate for 1,343 candidates stood at Rs 4.54 crore.

Congress candidates have the highest average assets per candidate at Rs 13.72 crore. It is followed by the BJP candidates at Rs 11.62 crores and Jannayak Janta Party candidates with average assets of Rs 11.29 crore.

The INLD candidates have average assets worth Rs 4.05 crore and 366 independent candidates have average assets worth Rs 1.79 crore.