Odisha polls: Poor Kandhamal has two of the richest candidates

Sambad English Bureau Published On : Mar 26, 2014 at 3:05 PM Updated On : Mar 26, 2014 at 3:14 PM

Odisha Sun Times Bureau

Bhubaneswar, Mar 26:

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Kandhamal may be a poverty-ridden district, but the main candidates in fray for the parliamentary seat are certainly not.

While Hemendra Singh, the BJD candidate, together with his wife Pratyusha Rajeshwari Singh, has assets of a whopping Rs 48.72 crores, his main rival, Harihar Karan of the Congress has total assets of Rs 9.72 crores, according the affidavits sumitted by them while filing their nominations.

Singh, as per the affidavit filed by him has movable assets of Rs 11.17 crores and his wife Rs 2.48 crores.

According to the affidavit filed by Hemendra Singh during nomination, he has total movable properties worth over Rs 11.17 crore and immovable properties worth Rs 35.07 crores. His spouse has movable assets of over Rs 2.48 crore. Besides bank deposits and investments, he has 11 vehicles.

The scion of the Nayagarh royal family and his family members apparently have a fascination for costly watches the current market value of which is Rs 23. 85 lakhs. While Singh himself has a Rolex watch (market value Rs 4 lakh), Omega (1.20 lakh), Rolex (Rs 7 lakh), his spouse has an Omega Constellation (Rs 1 lakh), Rolex diamond (Rs 7 lakh) and Omega worth Rs 3.75 lakh. His dependents have two Tagheur watches (valued at Rs 3 lakh).

Singh’s total income in 2012-13 was Rs 10.24 crore, while his spouse’s income was Rs 1.31 lakh, as per the affidavit.

Congress candidate Harihar Karan, a former minister, has total movable properties around Rs 71.44 lakh while his spouse has Rs 66.20 lakh.

According to the affidavit, Karan has Rs 6.07 crore worth of immovable properties, while his spouse’s immovable properties was valued at Rs 2.18 crore at current prices.

In sharp contrast to the two, the other candidates stand far behind in terms of wealth. BJP’s Sukanta Panigrahi is the poorest of the candidates with only Rs 5.80 lakh.

Narendra Mohanty of AAP has property worth Rs 9.58 lakh, while the other two candidates, Rama Nayak (BSP) and Lambodar Kanhar (Independent) have properties worth Rs 11.37 lakh and Rs 13 lakh respectively.

A total of six candidates are in the fray for the Kandhamal Lok Sabha seat.