Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Crorepati candidates

GUWAHATI, April 20: The assets of Congress’ Tezpur candidate Mani Kumar Subba increased by Rs 65 lakh per month in the last five years, and that of Santosh Mohan Dev and BK Handique increased by over Rs 1 lakh per month in the last five years. While the State has as many as 14 crorepati Lok Sabha candidates, the assets of 31 candidates are less than Rs 1 lakh. These statistics have been released by the Assam chapter of National Election Watch that collected the data from the affidavits submitted to the Election Commission by the candidates themselves.

While Mani Kumar Subba has assets worth Rs 57.87 crore, AUDF candidate Sirajuddin Ajmal has assets worth Rs 40.52 crore, Badruddin Ajmal has Rs 30.36 crore, Santosh Mohan Dev has Rs 10.11 crore, Rani Narah has Rs 5.39 crore, BK Handique has Rs 1.54 crore, Robin Bordoloi has Rs 1 crore, Pabon Singh Ghatowar has Rs 98 lakh and Dip Gogoi has 41.67 lakh, the report said.

Significantly, Subba had declared his assets as Rs 18.46 crore in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, and it increased by Rs 39.44 crore in the last five years. Santosh Mohan Dev had declared his assets as Rs 1.23 crore in 2004 Lok Sabha elections, and it increased by Rs 8.87 crore in the last five years. Likewise, the assets of BK Handique increased by Rs 1.40 crore in the last five years from Rs 13.56 lakh in 2004, and Dip Gogoi’s assets increased by Rs 38.24 lakh in last five years from Rs 3.42 lakh in 2004. On the contrary, Jayanta Rongpi’s assets decreased by Rs 24.61 lakh in the last five years. He had declared his assets as Rs 57.58 lakh in 2004, the report added.

While RCPI candidate from Guwahati Ambu Bora (79) is the seniormost candidate, Independent Pranjyoti Bora (26) is the youngest candidate among those in the fray. As many as eight candidates are in the age group 25-30 years, 42 in the age group 31-40 years, 41 candidates in the age group 41-50 years, 38 candidates in the age group 51-60 years, 21 candidates in the age group 61-70 years and five candidates in the age group 71-80 years.

As far as educational qualification is concerned, 22 candidates are under-matriculates, 17 are HSLC passed and 15 candidates are higher secondary passed. Among the 43 graduate candidates, six are from the Congress, two each from the BJP, SP, JMM, CPI and CPI-ML, one from the AGP and the rest are Independent candidates. Among the 30 postgraduate candidates, three are from the Congress, four from the BJP, two each from the AUDF and CPI-M and one each from the CPI and SP, and the rest are Independent candidates. THE SENTINEL

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