Poorer the states richer are the netas. The hurly-burly politics appears to have gripped the world’s largest but arguably chaotic democracy which is going into its most important exercise of holding 15th General ElectionsThe days of struggling, socialist politicians are over. The state is now producing a new breed of crorepati candidates. Has the Lok Sabha become an exclusive club of the super-rich and the powerful ? If the affidavits of personal wealth submitted for the elections are any indication, it seems you need to be a crorepati to become an MP.

The Lok Sabha elections are no longer a poor man’s playground and this statement is getting vindicated everyday during the ongoing nominations when candidates are coming out with mind-boggling financial revelations. The Election Commission has made it mandatory for each candidate contesting the Lok Sabha elections to reveal his/her financial wealth to public. Going by the statements many of our politicians have filed, their assets has grown by 300 to 3000 per cent since five years. These rich politicians hail from almost all the political parties. Lagadapati Rajagopal, the owner of power generation and infrastructure company Lanco, and the Congress candidate from Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh has shown assets worth Rs 299 crore. In 2004, he had declared assets worth just Rs 10 crore. In other words, during the five-year UPA rule, his assets went up to 30 times or by almost 3000%. And Rajagopal isn’t the only politician whose wealth has grown, but also others politicians– there are many more who have bigger assets. The BSP, which claims the party is a party of poor and dalits. The party has given ticket to crorepati Karan Singh Tanwar from the South Delhi constituency. Karan Singh Tanwar declared aeests worth Rs 122 crore.
Not only the national parties are in the front line when it comes to crorepati candidates, but also the regional parties are also not lagging behind. The Samajwadi Party, which claims to adopt the socialist ideology, has given a ticket to Abu Sim Azmi, who has assets worth over Rs 122 crore. On the other hand, film maker Prakash Jha, who created sensation in Bollywood by making films on politician-criminal nexus like ‘Gangajal’ and ‘Apaharan’, is not lagging behind in crorepati race. He has declared his asset worth Rs 55 crores.
In such a scenario, one question keeps haunting whether these rich political leaders make any difference, especially to the states they are from or the people they represent ? Going thorough these affidavits of the netas, one thing can be said that due to global economic recession, no business is flourishing and large companies became bankrupt. But, the declaration of assets by the Indian politicians is a clear indication that after the 1929’s biggest global recession, if any business survived in India is -the business of politics. Because despite the slowdown, our politicians are flourishing.