Nearly half of Assam first phase candidates have not declared tax details

Nearly half the candidates contesting the first phase of the Assam assembly elections have not declared their income tax details, an NGO, Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), said here on Thursday.

Forty seven percent or 255 of 539 candidates have not declared their income tax details, while 19 of these candidates have assets worth more than Rs.50 lakhs, said ADR.

In all, 112 contesting candidates have their assets in crores of rupees.

It said top of the chart is Jyoti Subba an Independent, standing from Sootea constituency of Tezpur district, who has assets worth Rs.288.1 crore. Naren Sonwal of Asom Gana Parishad, fighting polls from Naharkatia seat of Dibrugarh district, has assets worth Rs.33.9 crore. Rahul Roy of Congress ranks third with net worth of Rs.25 crore. He is contesting from Algapur assembly segment of Hailakandi district, said ADR in a statement.

It said 36 of the 65 candidates fielded by Congress have assets worth crores of rupees, in comparison to 23 out of 54 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates and seven of 11 AGP candidates. ADR said 26 Independents have declared assets worth more than Rs.1 crore.

Two candidates, Jiten Tanti of CPI(ML)(L)from Teok constituency and Diganta Phukan, an Independent from Mariani constituency, have declared zero assets in their self sworn affidavits submitted to the Election Commission of India.

It said 68 of the 539 candidates have not declared their PAN details. Two of them have assets worth more than Rs.5 crore.

Among major players, Asom Gana Parishad is the richest political party with average assets of its 11 candidates at Rs.6.06 crore. Congress is at second spot with average worth of its 65 candidates at Rs.2.62 crore, while BJP is next with average worth of its 54 candidates at Rs.1.50 crore. The 27 All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) candidates have average assets worth Rs.1.06 crore.

The April 4 polls will see 65 seats of the 126-member Assam assembly go to polls.