Nearly one fourth of the candidates for 117 constituencies, going to polls across 12 states on April 24, are crorepatis.

According to a National Election Watch report, a total of 2,071 Lok Sabha candidates are in fray in the sixth phase of elections. Of them, 504 are crorepatis.

Party-wise, DMK (94 per cent) leads the crorepati list followed by the Congress (82 per cent), AIADMK (80 per cent), Bharatiya Janata Party (75 per cent) and Samajwadi Party (52 per cent). Nearly half of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidates in fray are crorepatis.

Among the candidates fielded by the Trinamool Congress and the Bhaujan Samaj Party (BSP), the crorepati leader are 33 and 27 per cent respectively, the report noted.

The average assets per candidate in the fray is Rs 2.76 crores. Among major parties, the average assets per candidate for 94 Congress candidates is Rs 13.62 crores, Rs14.37 crores for 77 BJP contestants, Rs 2.60 crores for 91 AAP nominees and Rs. 2.32 crores for 111 BSP candidates.

Top three candidates with highest assets are Congress’ Vasantha Kumar H, who is contesting from Kanyakumari parliamentary seat in Tamil Nadu, Hema Malini of BJP, contesting for Mathura seat in Uttar Pradesh and Jain Manish Ishwarlal of Nationalist Congress Party, contesting from Raver, Maharashtra. Vasantha owns an asset of worth Rs 282-crore, Hema Rs-178 crore and Ishwarlal Rs-151 crore.