NEW DELHI: It was not just political parties whose bottomlines showed impressive growth when their strength rose in Parliament, even many MPs who were elected in 2004 saw the value of their assets increase significantly once they were in Lok Sabha.
An analysis of affidavits of about 258 sitting MPs recontesting the 2009 Lok Sabha elections shows that more than half of them saw their assets grow between 100% and 9,100% in comparison to what they had in 2004. The growth in assets in some cases could also be due to some MPs having started from a low base.
The affidavits of recontesting MPs were analysed by Association of Democratic Reforms , an election watch group having dean of IIM Bangalore Trilochan Sastry and former CEC J M Lyngdoh as members besides other eminent personalities from academics, bureaucracy and judiciary.
Topping the chart is BSP's Mohamad Tahir from UP who saw his assets grow by more than 9,100% between 2004 and 2009, followed closely by BJP's C H Vijayashankar from Karnataka who recorded 6,500% growth in his assets. Congress's Sachin Pilot and B Vallabhaneni from Andhra Pradesh registered 1,700% and 1,100% growth respectively in their wealth.
But not everyone was as fortunate. Former Karnataka chief minister and Congress aspirant S Bangarappa's long absence from power seems to have had its impact on his balancesheet too. His assets declined by at least 80% since 2004.
Similar is the condition of his fellow partyman from J&K Choudhary Lal Singh, who is second from the bottom after Bangarappa in the evaluation chart. His assets declined by nearly 70%.
Other major losers include Prasanna Kumar of BJD (-66 %), Ranjeeta Ranjan who recently joined Congress in Bihar (-40 %), former Delhi Police supercop Nikhil Kumar of Congress (-33 %), Gurudas Dasgupta of CPI (-9 %) and Mohammad Taslimuddin of RJD (0%).
Some of the known political faces have not been as impressive . Sonia Gandhi's assets , according to ADR, have grown by 60%, while her son Rahul Gandhi has posted a growth of 414%, better than Delhi CM Shiela Dikshit's son Sandeep Dikshit (377%) and Congress candidate from Andhra Pradesh L Rajagopal (in news for assets worth Rs 300 crore) with growth of just 43%.
