Bangalore:

The average asset of Bangalore candidates of various political parties contesting the May five Assembly elections in Karnataka is Rs 25 crore, an NGO tracking the trend has claimed.

Karnataka Election Watch (KEW) today said it has analysed affidavits of 156 candidates from Bangalore from six major parties; BJP, Congress, JD(S), KJP, BSR Congress led by former minister B Sriramulu and Loksatta Party (LSP).

Out of these 156, as many as 118 (or 76 per cent) are crorepatis. The average asset per candidate is Rs 25 crore.

The top three candidates with highest declared assets are : Priyakrishna of Congress from Govindrajnagar who has declared assets worth Rs 910.9 crore, followed by N Nagaraju of Congress from Hosakote (Rs 470.13 crore) and K Bagegowda of JD(S) from Basavanagudi (Rs 250.53 crore), KEW said.

The top three candidates with highest declared liabilities are: Priyakrishna (Rs 777 crore) followed by Prabhakara Reddy R of JD(S) from Bangalore South (Rs 200 Crore), and M Krishnappa of Congress from Vijayanagar (Rs 78 crore).

As many as 12 of these 156 (eight per cent) candidates contesting from Bangalore have not declared their PAN details, the NGO said.

N A Haris of Congress from Shantinagar has declared the highest income of worth Rs 49 crore in the last Income Tax Returns (ITR) filed for 2011-2012, followed by N Nagaraju of Congress from Hosakote (Rs 21 crore) and Prabhakara Reddy R of JD(S) from Bangalore South (Rs nine crore), it said.

Out of the 156 candidates analysed from Bangalore, 32 candidates (or 20 per cent) have declared criminal cases against them.

The average assets of 179 outgoing MLAs in the state who are contesting again is Rs 19.87 crore. Forty out of these 179 have criminal cases against them, it added.

source:http://zeenews.india.com