Mumbai: Bharatiya Janata Party’s Murlidhar Kisanrao Mohol from Pune registered the highest increase in the wealth growth among all the 1,717 candidates contesting in the fourth phase of the Lok Sabha elections. Aurangabad’s Bhumare Sandipanrao Asaram from the Shiv Sena is also one of the top-10 wealth accumulators in phase 4.
The informed Voter Project released its analysis of the candidates contesting in the fourth phase of parliamentary elections, which comprises ten states and union territories. The non-profit institution analyses the candidates and political parties according to their manifestos, performance statistics, criminal record, assets and education. The report card for phase 4 of the elections provides the citizens with the data about the annual growth rate of the candidates’ assets.
According to IVP’s report, BJP’s Murlidhar Mohol contesting from Pune recorded the highest increase in his wealth in the last five years. Mohol recorded 2,161% year-on-year growth. The list of the top-10 wealth accumulators also included Aurangabad’s candidate Bhumarae Asaram, a member of the Eknath Shinde led Shiv Sena. Asaram recorded 190% annual growth in his wealth in the last five years.
The report says that the candidates belonging to the BJP recorded the highest wealth growth at 99% with the average wealth of members to be Rs 19.7 crores. Shiv Sena followed the BJP as the second top party with the highest wealth growth rate at 74% with the average wealth of candidates to be Rs 54.5 crores.
“While the average growth rate of wealth for an ordinary Indian has been merely 0.7% every year in the last 4 years, the wealth of the candidates belonging to the NDA alliance has grown 26 times faster. The wealth of INDIA alliance candidates in these states has grown at a 86% lower rate than NDA alliance candidates but has grown 4 times the rate of the ordinary Indians,” said the report.
The report also includes the list of top candidates with the most violent criminal charges, by associating the severity of crime to the number of red flags denoted. Shirur’s candidate Adhalrao Dattatrey, from Ajit Pawar’s faction of Nationalist Congress Party, got the highest red flags from the candidates in Maharashtra. With 24 red flags, Dattatrey’s crimes include multiple cases of attempt to murder and criminal intimidation. Shiv Sena’s Chandrakant Khaire received 12 red flags for robbery, attempt to cause death and criminal intimidation.
IVP also released their report evaluating the performance of the government related to Education and Women and Child Development (WCD)according to the promises made in the manifesto. The report said that the government broke 28% of the education promises and 59% of the WCD promises as they were ‘low’ or ‘very low’ in performance.
“While there has been an increase in the quantity of seats in academic institutions, the quality of education has seemingly plateaued as no new world-class universities or a national policy to upskill and reskill, as promised. On the other hand, there have been many well-intentioned and well-named schemes , but the resultant care for children and women has remained somewhat superficial,” the report stated.
