90% of winners in Kerala Assembly elections are ‘crorepatis’

Of the 20 candidates who won the Lok Sabha elections from Kerala, 18 are ‘crorepatis’ – their combined assets exceeding Rs 10 crore.

The top three richest candidates are Shashi Tharoor of the Indian National Congress, who won from Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency, Rahul Gandhi from Wayanad and Suresh Gopi of the Bharatiya Janata Party, who won from Thrissur, with total assets of around Rs 560.6 crore, Rs 239 crore and Rs 185.8 crore respectively.

Adul Prakash of the Indian National Congress, who won in the Attingal constituency, is close behind with assets of 180.9 million rupees, according to an analysis by the voting rights group Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

In Kerala, when the election results were declared on June 4, the United Democratic Front won 18 of the 20 seats, while the Left Democratic Front and National Democratic Alliance won one seat each.

The remaining winners of the ‘Crorepati Club’ are K Francis George (Kottayam – Rs 950 crore), K Sudhakaran (Kannur – Rs 629 crore), KC Venugopal (Alappuzha – Rs 360 crore), Benny Behanan (Chalakudy – Rs 350 crore), Hibi Eden (Ernakulam – Rs 338 crore), Rajmohan Unnithan (Kasaragod – Rs 320 crore), NK Premachandran (Kollam – Rs 311 crore), MK Raghavan (Kozhikode – Rs 249 crore), MP Abdusamad Samadani (Ponnani – Rs 219 crore), Dean Kuriakose (Idukki – Rs 207 crore), ET Mohammed Basheer (Malapuram – Rs 202 crore), Kodikunil Suresh (Mavelikkara – Rs 150 crore) and Anto Antony (Pathanamthitta – Rs 1.24 crore), VK Sreekandan (Palakkad – Rs 1.24 crore).

Shafi Paramvir of the Indian National Congress, who won from Vadakara Lok Sabha constituency, had a total assets of Rs 9,934,000 while K. Radhakrishnan, the only Left Democratic Front winner from Arathur in the elections, had a total assets of about Rs 4,014,000.

The number of ‘crore candidates’ contesting in the Lok Sabha elections in Kerala has been on the rise since 2009. That year, there were just nine candidates with assets of over Rs 1 crore. In the 2014 elections, the number jumped to 39. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the total number of crore candidates rose to 45. In the current general elections, there were nearly 53 candidates with assets of over Rs 1 crore.