The polling for the Himachal Pradesh assembly elections is scheduled to take place on November 12 and the results will be announced on December 8

Assets of a majority of 58 lawmakers re-contesting the Himachal Pradesh assembly polls have registered a significant increase over the last five years, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Himachal Pradesh Election Watch have said in an analysis based on affidavits submitted for the November 12 elections.

They increased from 5% to 1167% in the case of 49 of these contestants. The assets of nine lawmakers decreased between -4% to -37%.

In 2017, the average assets of these contestants were ₹9.30 crore. In 2022, this has gone up to ₹12.08 crore. The average growth in the assets has been 30%. The lawmakers have at least twice the assets they had in 2017.

The assets of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party lawmaker (Chopal) Balbir Singh Verma have increased from approximately ₹90.73 crores in 2017 to ₹128.45 crores in 2022. His party colleague Anil Sharma’s (Mandi) assets grew from ₹40.24 crore in 2017 to ₹57.48 crore in 2022.

The assets of Congress’s Vikramaditya Singh (Shimla Rural) rose by ₹17.06 crore, from ₹84.32 crore in 2017 to ₹101.39 crore.

BJP contestants recorded the highest average increase in assets from over 7 crore in 2017 to over 10 crore in 2022. This marked an increase of over 44%. The average assets of Congress nominees increased by almost 18% from over 13 crore to 15 crore.