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Deccan Herald
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/396297/46-crorepatis-4-039zeropatis039-vie.html
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THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

Among the 269 candidates seeking mandate in 20 Lok Sabha constituencies of Kerala, there are 46 crorepatis and four with no assets at all. 

And the list of top three rich candidates leads with Congress MP and Minister of State Shashi Tharoor, followed by two Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidates.

According to the figures compiled by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Kerala Election Watch, eight of the 15 Congress candidates in the fray are crorepatis.

AAP (four of 15 candidates), CPM (two of nine), CPI (two of four), BSP (four of 20) and BJP (two of 17) are other parties that figure in the crorepati list. Both the candidates fielded by the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) – E Ahammed in Malappuram and E T Mohammed Basheer in Ponnani – have also made the list.

T Ravindran, co-ordinator of Kerala Election Watch, told Deccan Herald that affidavits of 256 candidates were analysed for the report. The affidavits of P K Sainaba, the Left candidate from Malappuram and 12 independent candidates could not be analysed due to technical reasons, he said.

Shashi Tharoor (Congress) from Thiruvananthapuram with Rs 23.02 crore, Anita Pratap (AAP) from Ernakulam with Rs 20.33 crore and K M Noordeen (AAP) from Chalakudy with Rs 15.86 crore are the three top high-asset candidates in the state.

Of the 57 candidates who have declared assets worth less than Rs 3 lakh, four have declared zero assets: Rajesh S (Shiv Sena) from Palakkad, Soman Pillai (Indian Gandhiyan Party) from Thrissur, Chandrababu (Independent) from Alappuzha and Shyamalakumari (independent) from Thiruvananthapuram. T S Balakrishnan, an independent candidate contesting from Alappuzha has declared assets of only Rs 50. The average value of candidate assets in the state is Rs 82.21 lakh.

Among the candidates with high incomes, Anita Pratap (Rs 1.07 crore), Shashi Tharoor (Rs 75.4 lakh) and P C Chacko (Congress) from Chalakudy with Rs 28.2 lakh make the top three. There are 125 candidates who have declared liabilities of which 18 have liabilities of above Rs 20 lakh. Of the 256 candidates analysed, 168 (66 per cent) have not declared their income tax details.