M T B Nagraj is one of the richest legislators in Karnataka. He has declared assets to the tune of Rs 1,912 crore for the upcoming elections in Karnataka.

The combined value of the assets declared by him and his wife M Shanthakumar is Rs 2,607 crore.

Nagraj was one of the rebels who jumped ship from the Congress to the BJP in 2019, which helped the latter form the party. He had won from the Hosakote constituency in 2018 on a rural ticket. He however lost on a BJP ticket in the by-elections that were held in 2019. He is contesting the current election on a ticket of the saffron party.

Nagraj's moveable assets, including cash in hand, money in the bank accounts and loans provided to him by various firms and individuals are worth Rs 372.42 crore. He also owns agriculture land worth Rs 30.02 crore and non-agriculture land worth Rs 355.51 crore, He has also declared that he has commercial buildings to the tune of Rs 356.01 crore. The worth of his residential buildings are at Rs 798.38 crore.

For the 2018 assembly elections, he had declared assets to the tune of Rs 1,060 crore, which had increased to Rs 1,220 crore when he filed the nomination for the post of MLC in 2022.

The other politician who has declared assets worth over Rs 1,000 crore is Karnataka Congress chief, D K Shivakumar. His total assets stand at Rs 1,214 crore, with is up from Rs 721.56 crore which he had declared win 2018.

If one analysis the data, the average assets held by the MLAs in Karnataka is at Rs 34.6 crore which is the highest compared to any state. The Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra MLAs come second and third with average assets to the tune of Rs 27.9 crore and 22.4 crore respectively. The conclusion is based on the data provided by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which have been seen by OneIndia.

The ADR date provided for 2018 shows that 109 of the 114 MLAs from the Congress had declared assets worth over Rs 1 crore. In the case of the BJP, 33 had declared assets more than Rs 1 crore, while in the case of the JD(S) it was 35.

In 2018, Priyakrishna of the Congress was the richest candidate with assets to the tune of Rs 910 crore.

Analysts with whom this correspondent spoke with said that in the past few elections, barons from the field of real estate and mining lobby had largely been given tickets. This explains why the assets of these candidates is so high, the analyst said.

However this amount drastically falls, when one analyses the list of poorest candidates. In 2018, the candidate with the lowest assets was H Rajesh of the Congress who was worth Rs 7 lakh.

The average assets party-wise stood at Rs 32.60 crore for the Congress and Rs 13.23 crore in the case of the BJP. The JD(S) average stood at Rs 12.80 crore.