90% of Lok Sabha poll winners from Kerala are ‘crorepatis’

Shashi Tharoor, Rahul Gandhi and Suresh Gopi are the wealthiest among MPs elected from Kerala, while Left MP Radhakrishnan is the poorest MP-elect from the State.

Eighteen of the 20 candidates who won the Lok Sabha elections from Kerala are ‘crorepatis’. They have total assets worth over ₹1 crore.

The top three wealthiest candidate are Shashi Tharoor of the Congress who won the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency, Rahul Gandhi (Wayanad), and Suresh Gopi of the Bharatiya Janata Party, who was elected from Thrissur. Their total assets are about ₹56.06 crore, ₹20.39 crore, and ₹18.58 crore respectively.

Adoor Prakash of the Congress, who won the Attingal constituency, is close behind with total assets worth ₹18.09 crore, according to an analysis by the poll rights body Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

In Kerala, the United Democratic Front had won 18 of the 20 seats while the Left Democratic Front and National Democratic Alliance shared one seat each when results were declared on June 4.

The remaining winners in the ‘crorepati club’ are K. Francis George (Kottayam – ₹9.5 crore), K. Sudhakaran (Kannur - ₹6.29 crore), K.C. Venugopal (Alappuzha - ₹3.6 crore), Benny Behanan (Chalakudy - ₹3.5 crore), Hibi Eden (Ernakulam - ₹3.38 crore), Rajmohan Unnithan (Kasaragod - ₹3.2 crore), N.K. Premachandran (Kollam - ₹3.11 crore), M.K. Raghavan (Kozhikode - ₹2.49 crore), M.P. Abdussamad Samadani (Ponnani - ₹2.19 crore), Dean Kuriakose (Idukki - ₹2.07 crore), E.T Mohammed Basheer (Malappuram - ₹2.02 crore), Kodikunnil Suresh (Mavelikkara - ₹1.5 crore), Anto Antony (Pathanamthitta - ₹1.24 crore), and V.K. Sreekandan (Palakkad - ₹1.24 crore).

Shafi Parambil of the Congress, who won the Vadakara Lok Sabha constituency, had total assets to the tune of ₹99.34 lakh while K. Radhakrishnan, the lone winner of the Left Democratic Front in this election from Alathur, had total assets of about ₹40.14 lakh.

The number of ‘crorepati candidates’ in the fray for the Lok Sabha election from Kerala has been on the rise since 2009. That year, only nine candidates had total assets worth over ₹1 crore each. It shot up to 39 in the election held in 2014. In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the total number of crorepati candidates increased to 45. There were nearly 53 candidates having assets over 1 crore in this general election.