(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Over 83 percent of the legislators elected to the 13th legislative assembly in Haryana are millionaires, a research claimed yesterday.
The Haryana Election Watch (HEW) and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) said the average assets of legislators in the new assembly were `120.97m.
In the previous assembly elected in 2009, the average assets of elected members were Rs.6.71 crore.
Among parties, Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) candidates were the richest with average assets of `130.01m followed by Congress members with assets of `120.45m. BJP legislators have average assets of `100.5m, the ADR study said. The five independent legislators elected had average assets of `130.95m each.
The average assets of the contesting candidates in the 2014 assembly polls were at `40.38m. The richest one among them had declared assets of `2.12bn.
The study pointed out that 21 legislators had been re-elected this time in the 90-member assembly. While the average assets of these re-elected members were `40m in 2009, now they had gone up to `130.8m.
The average growth of the re-elected legislators (from 2009 to 2014) was `90.8m - or a whopping 245 percent.
The growth among parties was the Congress at `80.49m, the INLD at `80.22m and the BJP at `20.13m between 2009 and 2014.
BJP victor from the Faridabad seat Vipul Goyal, with declared assets of `1.06bn, is the richest winner. He has also showed liabilities of `430m, the highest among all winning candidates.
Other rich winners included Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) president Kuldeep Bishnoi (`800m), his wife Renuka Bishnoi (`800m), BJP's Abhimanyu (`770m) and INLD's Abhay Chautala (`430m).
Kuldeep Bishnoi and his wife Renuka Bishnoi will enter the Haryana assembly as the first elected couple. Both, aged 46 and 40 respectively, have been legislators earlier but were never elected together. Kuldeep is son of former Haryana chief minister Bhajan Lal. Kuldeep's elder brother, Chander Mohan, a former deputy chief minister, lost in the polls this time. INLD leader Abhay Chautala and his sister-in-law (elder brother's wife) Naina Chautala have also been elected to the new assembly.
The outgoing legislative assembly had three people from the same family as legislators. These were INLD leader Om Prakash Chautala, a former chief minister, and his two sons Ajay Chautala and Abhay Chautala. Om Prakash Chautala and Ajay Chautala were convicted by a CBI court in Delhi in a teachers' recruitment scam and sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. Both are lodged in Delhi's Tihar Jail now.
Naina is the first woman from the political clan of former deputy prime minister Devi Lal to contest an election and win it. Abhay and Naina are 49 and 47 years old respectively.
However, Naina's son, Dushyant Chautala, who is the sitting Lok Sabha member from Hisar, lost from the Uchana Kalan assembly seat.
The ADR pointed out that 10 percent of the elected legislators had criminal cases against them.
Results of the Haryana assembly election were historic for the BJP as the party romped home winning 47 seats in the 90-member assembly. The BJP would form the government on its own in the state for the first time.
The INLD followed with 19 legislators while the Congress, which was in power since March 2005, managed to get only 15 seats. Two seats went to the HJC, one each to Shiromani Akali Dal and Bahujan Samaj Party. Five Independent candidates were also elected.
The newly elected 13th legislative assembly of Haryana is a relatively young one, with the youngest just 29.
Nearly half of the 90 legislators elected this time are 50 years old or less.
While the youngest one, Sukhvinder of the BJP, who trounced Ranbir Singh Mahendra of the Congress, who isformer Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president and son of former chief minister Bansi Lal, from the Badhra assembly constituency, is just 29 years old, the oldest is INLD legislator Hari Chand Middha (Jind seat) at 72.
At least 44 legislators in the new assembly are 50 years old or less. Of these, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has 23 young legislators, followed by the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) with 12 and the Congress with four.
Haryana itself was created on November 1, 1966, and will be 48 in the next few days. Nine of the 13 women legislators elected this time are under the age of 50 years.
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