Bengaluru: Everyone is interested in knowing the net worth of political leaders. There are some leaders who were poor before entering politics, but later became rich. Recently, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) team has studied the list of rich and poor MLAs based on the details mentioned in the affidavits submitted to the Election Commission in 2023.
It concluded that the richest MLA in the country has fixed and movable assets worth Rs 1,400 crore and the poorest MLA has Rs 20,000. Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister and KPCC President DK Shivakumar is the richest MLA, while West Bengal's Nirmal Kumar Dhara is the MLA with the least assets. Among the top 10 richest MLAs, four are from the Congress and three are from the BJP. Shivakumar responded to this. He commented that he was neither rich nor poor. He commented that all the assets that he has at present did not come at once, but were earned through hard work over a period of time.
Also read: BJP accounts for more than half of total income declared by 8 national parties in FY 2021-22: ADR
He said that some people register their properties in the name of different people and he does not like that. That is why he said that he has so many assets in his name. Independent MLA of Gouribidanur constituency KH Puttaswamy stood second after DK Shivakumar with assets worth Rs 1,267 crore. Priyakrishna of Congress secured third place with assets of Rs 1,156 crore. Bhagirathi Murulya of BJP is the MLA with the least assets among Karnataka MLAs. He has assets worth Rs 28 lakhs and Rs 2 lakhs in debt.
On the other hand, the ADR report revealed that 12 of the top 20 richest MLAs in the country are from Congress. BJP criticised this in its own style. It said that Congress renders justice only to the rich and allocates seats to them. On the other hand, the study stated that 14 per cent of MLAs in Karnataka are rich and their personal assets are more than Rs 100 crore. Next is Arunachal Pradesh. Out of the total 59 MLAs in that state, four are crorepatis
