Candidates in Delhi Municipal Corporation election have assets worth crores; fare poorly on education front

Tribune News Service

Karam Prakash 

New Delhi, December 2

Importance of money power in the election to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is evident as 60 per cent of the candidates of the two major parties -- AAP and BJP -- are 'crorepatis'. 

The average asset of a BJP candidate is Rs 4.04 crore while that of an AAP candidate is Rs 3.74 crore.

The average asset of a Congress candidate is Rs 1.98 crore, according to the analysis by Association for Democratic Reforms, an NGO working on electoral and political reforms.  

The average assets per candidate contesting the MCD election this time are Rs 2.27 crore, while in 2017 these were Rs 1.61 crore.

The BJP has been ruling the MCD since 2007. The voting for the MCD, which has an annual budget of over Rs 15,000 crore, will take place on December 4. The counting will be held on December 7.

The top two rich candidates are contesting the election on a BJP ticket. Ram Dev Sharma of Ward 79-Ballimaran has assets worth Rs 66 crore, followed by Nandini Sharma of Malviya Nagar who has assets worth Rs 49.84 crore. The third on the list, Jitender Bansal of AAP, has assets worth Rs 48.27 crore. 

However, a majority of the candidates have poor educational qualification. Around 56 per cent candidates have declared their qualification to be between Classes 5 and 12, while 36 per cent say they are either graduate or above Class 12. 

Twelve candidates are diploma holders while 22 have declared themselves to be just literate. As many as 60 candidates are illiterate.

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