Chief Minister Mayawati may say that the Congress and the BJP are parties of capitalists, but as many as 14 of the 55 BSP candidates in the fray in the first phase of the Assembly polls, for which voting will take place on February 8, are self-declared crorepatis.

According to the analysis of these 55 candidates’ affidavits by National Election Watch (NEW) and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) 74.6 per cent BSP candidates possess the wealth of over Rs 1 crore. The “average asset per candidate” for the is BSP is Rs 3.83 crore, highest among the candidates of four major political parties. Average assets per candidate for the SP is Rs 1.74 crore, for the BJP Rs 1.56 crore, and for the Congress Rs 1.34 crore.

The ADR and NEW also analysed the affidavits of 284 candidates belonging to BSP, BJP, SP, Congress, Peace Party, JD(U), and RLD, and found that 144 (51 per cent) of them are crorepatis.

In the list of 20 candidates with highest assets, nine are BSP candidates followed by five of SP, three of BJP, one of Congress and one of Peace Party.

BSP candidate from Bansi constituency of Siddharthnagar Vinay Shankar tops the list with total assets of Rs 52.06 crore, followed by BSP’s Colonelganj candidate Ajay Pratap Singh and Sevata candidate Ranjana Bajpai who possess the total assets of Rs 43.94 crore and Rs 19.43 crore respectively.

Other BSP candidates, who feature in the list are its Barabanki candidate Sangram Singh with total assets of Rs 11.19 crore, its Bhinga candidate A Raheem Khan with the total assets of Rs 7.08 crore, its Jalalpur candidate Ritesh Pandey with total assets of Rs 5.44 crore, its Shohratgarh candidate Mumtaz Ahmed with the total assets of Rs 3.94 crore, its Katehari candidate Lalji Verma with the total assets of Rs 3.64 crore, and its Utraula candidate Dheerendra Pratap Singh with the total assets of Rs 3.47 crore.

The assets of BSP’s 18 MLAs who are contesting the election have increased by an average asset increase of Rs 2.20 crore, while the same for 17 SP MLAs is Rs 1.09 crore, for 4 BJP MLAs it is Rs 99 lakhs, and for 2 MLAs of Congress the average asset increase is Rs 3.59 crore.

The two organisations compared the affidavits filed by these candidates in 2007 with those filed in 2012 to get the asset increase.

The assets of BSP's Nanpara MLA Waris Ali, who is seeking re-election, increased by Rs 2.67 crore (829 per cent). In 2007 his total assets were of Rs 32.28 lakh and now they are of Rs 2.99 crore. Former BSP MLA from Bikapur Jitendra Singh's assets increased by Rs 2.13 crore. In 2007 his total assets were of Rs 23.82 lakh and now they are of Rs 2.37 crore. Singh is this time contesting the election as Peace Party candidate.

Former Ayurveda Minister in BSP government Daddan Mishra, who is now contesting on a BJP ticket from Bhinga, witnessed the asset increase of Rs 2.05 crore (482 per cent).