Pinaki Mishra of the BJD is the richest lok Sabha candidate and there are as many as 29 crorepatis among the 98 candidates contesting the 11 lok Sabha seats in the phase two polls in the State due on April 17.
According to a report of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and the Odisha Election Watch (OEW) based on the analysis of information furnished by the candidates in their affidavits presented here on Tuesday, eight persons have declared assets worth over Rs 5 crore. With assets worth more than Rs 137 crore, Pinaki Mishra, the BJD candidate in the Puri lok Sabha seat is far ahead of Sunjoy Hans of the Aama Odisha Party from Bhubaneswar who owns assets worth Rs 65 crore. Rabindra Kumar Jena of BJD from Baleswar comes third with assets worth Rs 57 crore.
However, there are at least six candidates who have declared assets worth less than Rs 1 lakh. Sabyasachi Mahapatra of the CPI(Ml) Red star from Cuttack with declared assets worth just Rs 600 assets is the poorest candidate in the second phase lS polls and is followed by Subas Chandra Mallick of SUCI(C) contesting from Jajpur whose assets amount to Rs 6,000 and Debendra Kumar Mallik of BSP from Jajpur whose assets are worth Rs 10, 000.
The report further revealed that five candidates have a total declared annual income of more than Rs 1 crore. Rabindra Kumar Jena has declared the highest total income of Rs 6.64 crore followed by Pinaki Mishra (Rs 3.92 crore). Baijyanta Panda of BJD from Kendrapada constituency comes third with a total income of Rs 3.57 crore.
The party-wise list of crorepatis candidates shows nine out of 11 candidates of the Congress (INC), eight out of 11 of BJD, four out of 11 of BJP, three out of 10 of AAP and one of the two candidates of Trinamool Congress have declared assets worth more than Rs 1 crore. Twenty out of the 98 candidates in the fray for the 11 lS seats have some or other criminal cases against them. As for educational qualifications, three out of the 98 candidates have doctorate degrees.
Another important aspect that has come to the fore is that almost all political parties have failed to field enough women as their nominees. A paltry 17 women are in the fray for the lok Sabha elections from the State out of the total 197 candidates in the race. 11 out of the 98 candidates in the second phase lS seats are women. This gives a clear indication about how serious the parties are about the 33 per cent reservation for women! OEW State coordinator Ranjan Kumar Mohanty along with former bureaucrat Sahadev Sahu addressed the Press conference.
