A total of 264 ‘crorepati’ candidates, comprising 27.90% of the final 946 contestants, are engaged in the battle of ballots in Assam for 126 Assembly Constituencies in three phases.
The richest candidate in the arena is the United Peoples Party, Liberal’s (UPPL) Kokrajhar West (ST) contestant Manaranjan Brahma, with total assets worth ₹268 crore.
He is followed by Independent candidate Rahul Roy from Udharbond with assets worth ₹136 crore and AIUDF’s Jamunamukh nominee Sirajuddin Ajmal with assets worth₹111 crore, according to the affidavits filed by them.
All three candidates have shown their source of income from business with Brahma’s wife filing her source as agricultural income.
Mr. Roy is the son of former Congress Minister Gautam Roy who joined the BJP and is contesting as a party candidate from Katigora Assembly constituency.
Both Mr. Roy and his wife Daisy Roy are contesting as Independent candidates, with the latter from Algapur, and the duo have total assets worth ₹131 crore.
Mr. Ajmal, a former MLA and MP, is the younger brother of AIUDF chief and perfume baron Badruddin Ajmal.
According to an analysis by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), Congress has the highest 64 candidates with assets above a crore, followed by BJP with 60, the newly formed Assam Jatiya Parishad with 31, the Asom Gana Parishad - 22, AIUDF - 11, BPF - eight, UPPL one and the rest are independents.
The income of 72 candidates is in the category of ₹5 crore and above, 91 of them are between ₹2 crore and above while 197 are in the bracket of ₹50 lakh to two crore.
Among the Ministers of the outgoing BJP-AGP-BPF government, Naba Kumar Doley has the highest total assets of ₹25 crore followed by Himanta Biswa Sarma with 17 crore, Chandan Brahma with ₹16 crore, Minister for Guwahati Development Department Siddharta Bhattacharya with ₹8 crore, Pijush Hazarika with ₹6 crore, Rihon Daimari and Sum Ronghang with ₹5 crore each. Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal along with his Cabinet colleagues Chandramohan Patowary, Pramila Rani Brahma, Atul Bora and Keshab Mahanta have assets worth ₹3 crore each.
Speaker of the outgoing Assembly Hitendra Nath Goswami has assets worth ₹1 crore while his deputy Aminul Haque Laskars assets are worth ₹6 crore
Ministers Parimal Suklabaidya, Bhabesh Kalita and Jogen Mohan have total assets worth over ₹1 crore each.
The BJP State president Ranjeet Kumar Dass has assets worth ₹5 crore and Rajya Sabha MP Biswajit Daimary, contesting on a BJP ticket from Panery, is worth ₹3 crore.
Among the Congress candidates, Suresh Bora from Barhampur is the richest with assets worth ₹37 crore, followed by Jalukbari candidate Romen Chandra Barthakur with ₹31 crore, former Ministers Siddeque Ahmed from Karimganj (South) with ₹26 crore, Bharat Narah from Naoboicha with ₹21 crore and Wazed Ali Choudhury with ₹11 crore.
Besides Daisy Roy, another rich women candidate is Diluwara Begum Chowdhury of the Raijor Dal, contesting as an independent from Jamunamukh constituency, with assets worth ₹15 crore, followed by AIUDF’s Minakshi Rahman with ₹10 crore, Congress Ashima Bardoloi with ₹7 crore and singer and AGP candidate Kalpana Patowary with ₹5 crore worth assets.
AJPs Dulu Ahmed contesting from Hajo is the richest party candidate with ₹43 crore worth of assets while another member of the new party Dipu Choudhury, contesting from Bongaigaon, is worth ₹12 crore.
In the first phase, there are 101 candidates with income above one crore are, 73 in the second and 90 in the third and final phase of the polls.
In the first phase, AGPs sitting AGP MLA from Naharkatiya Naren Sonowal has the highest worth assets of ₹33 crore, Rahul Roy tops the chart in the second phase while Manaranjan Brahma is the richest candidate in both the third phase and among all in this Assembly elections.
Sabendra Basumatary of Voters International Party has the lowest assets of only ₹2,500 as declared in the affidavit while Kanak Basumatary, also of VPI, has ₹5,000 and Independent candidate Bishnu Dhari Mallah from Ratabari (SC) has ₹8,000 as assets.
