The special Legislative session in Karnataka gets underway on Wednesday. The Congress, which will sit in opposition, leads the table with candidates with very high assets while the ruling BJP comes second, indicates statistics available with Karnataka Election Watch.
The Congress has 35 MLAs with very high assets (Rs 20 crore and above) and their total worth is Rs 256.6 crore. In 2004, the party after the election was worth just Rs 54.2 crore which would mean that the party has seen a 373 per cent jump in the last four years.
The Congress, incidentally, has the richest two MLAs in the 224-member House.
M Krishnappa, who was elected from the Vijay Nagar constituency in Bengaluru, is worth Rs 147.88 crore. His liabilities are estimated at Rs 69.85 crore.
Second on the list is Feroz Nurrudin Sait (Congress) from the Belgaum Uttar constituency with assets and liabilities estimated at Rs 58.55 crore and Rs 0 respectively.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has 40 MLAs with very high assets and their total worth is Rs 203.8 crore as against the Rs 51.4 crore in the 2004 elections. The party has seen a jump of 296 per cent in the past four years.
Anand Singh from the Vijayanagara constituency is the richest BJP MLA with assets worth Rs 57. 34 crore. The liabilities of Singh who is also the third richest MLA are estimated at Rs 7.37 crore.
The JD(S), which came third in the election with just 28 seats, has 16 MLAs with very high assets and are worth Rs 112.9 crore. This party has seen a phenomenal rise in terms of assets of candidates since the 2004 elections and the jump is estimated at 606 per cent. In 2004, the party was worth just Rs 16 crore.
The richest MLA from the JD(S) is H D Kumaraswamy, the former chief minister of the state. Kumaraswamy who won from the Ramanagar constituency, 50 km from Bangalore is worth Rs 30.20 crore, thus making him the ninth richest MLA in the House. His liabilities are estimated at Rs 23.12 crore.
Tainted MLAs:
In the tainted MLAs' section, it is the Bharatiya Janata Party which leads the pack with 25 MLAs with a criminal record. The Congress comes second with 8 MLAs while the JD(S) has 7.
Out of the 25 MLAs in the BJP with a criminal record, seven are in the Cabinet. They are Krishnaiah Shetty, Sriramulu, Shobha Karandlage, Aravind Limbavali, S A Ravindranath, D Sudhakar (Independent) and Goolihatti Shekhar (Independent).
Among the 25 MLAs with a criminal record, three have murder or attempt to murder charges pending against them.
In the Congress, there are 8 MLAs with a criminal record, of which three have murder or attempt to murder charges pending against them.
Of the 7 MLAs in the JD(S) with a criminal record, two have murder or attempt to murder charges pending against them.