Lok Sabha / Lok Sabha Polls: Shatrughan Sinha’s wife the richest candidate in Phase 5

Poonam Sinha has declared assets worth Rs 193 crore. She is contesting from Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. She is a Samajwadi Party candidate. Poonam Shatrughan Sinha, wife of actor-turned-politician and Congress’ Shatrughan Sinha, is the richest candidate in the fifth phase of Lok Sabha polls 2019. There are 184 candidates in the poll fray with assets worth Rs. 1 crore and more in this phase.

As per Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), 28 per cent of the candidates in the fifth phase are "crorepatis". Poonam Shatrughan Sinha of Samajwadi Party is the richest with declared assets worth Rs 193 crore. She is contesting from Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. Vijay Kumar Mishra with Rs 177 crore assets is second richest. He is Pragatishil Samajwadi Party (Lohia) candidate from Sitapur while Jayant Sinha of the BJP is third on the list with declared assets worth Rs 77 crore. He is a candidate from Hazaribagh in Jharkhand.

Jayant Sinha has the highest self-income shown by a candidate in Income Tax Returns in the last financial year. He has shown an income of Rs 35 lakh from salary, house property income, capital gains and interest dividend. Shyama Charan Gupta of the Samajwadi Party, a candidate from Banda has shown annual income of Rs 4 crore from salary and business. Jyoti Mirdha has third highest income in the list with Rs 3 lakh.Among the major parties 38(79 per cent) out of 48 Bharatiya Janata Party candidates, 32(71 per cent) out of 45 Congress candidates,17(52 per cent) out of 33 Bahujan Samaj candidates, 8(89 per cent) out of nine Samajwadi Party candidates, and 31(12 per cent) out of 252 independent candidates have declared assets worth more than Rs. 1 crore.

The average asset per candidate contesting in the Lok Sabha Phase 5 election is Rs. 2.57 crore. Among major parties, the average assets per candidate for 48 BJP candidates is Rs. 6.91 crore, 45 Congress candidates is Rs 8.74 crore, 33 BSP candidates have average assets of Rs 3.32 crore, and nine SP candidates have average assets of Rs 31.57 crore.

The National Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) have analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 668 out of 674 candidates, who are contesting in the Lok Sabha Phase 5. There are six candidates who have not been analysed due to unavailability of their properly scanned and complete affidavits, at the time of making this report.