Every time there are elections, general or assembly, the total net worth of candidates is submitted to the Election Commission of India (ECI), as required by the rules. Almost every time, a few candidates make headlines for the assets owned by them. Lok Sabha elections 2019 are no exception, and the richest candidate has been declared.
Ramesh Kumar Sharma, with declared assets of over Rs 1,107 crore, is the richest candidate in the Lok Sabha elections, as his affidavit shows.
Ramesh Kumar Sharma is an independent candidate who is contesting from Patliputra in Bihar. He is pitted against sitting BJP MP Ram Kripal Yadav. Sharma has declared total assets worth Rs 11,07,58,33,190, of which assets worth Rs 7, 08, 33,190 are movable.
Sixty-three-year-old Sharma says the purpose of his getting into the fray is to fight against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his “fake promises”.
According to Sharma’s affidavit, he has a Chartered Engineer certificate, and he owns nine vehicles.
“With demonetization, Modi took money away from people. There is crime happening all around and they are looting the country. I am fighting this election against Modi, the ‘jumlebaaz’,” Sharma said while talking to IANS, adding that he is more than 100 per cent confident of his win, even if BJP President Amit Shah contests against him.
Of the top five richest candidates, Ramesh Kumar Sharma is the only independent while the other four are from the Congress.
According to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), an NGO that has analysed the affidavits filed by the candidates before the ECI, 401 candidates out of the 1,266 have assets worth Rs 1 crore or more.
(With IANS inputs)