A glance at the affidavits filed by the candidates for the Assam Assembly polls scheduled for April 3 shows one striking similarity.
Almost all the 500-odd candidates in the fray are married to wealthy spouses.
The combined asset of these super-rich wives -- most of them housewives or members of voluntary organisations without any known sources of income -- is estimated at around Rs 266 crore against the combined worth of the candidates themselves -- Rs 82 crore.
Out of these, the president of Assam United Democratic Front Badaruddin Ajmal, a perfume mogul and the owner of Ajmal Group of Industries, is worth more than Rs 16 crore.
On an average, the candidates have declared that they have Rs 3 lakh in cash for campaigning, while the cash holding of their wives is in the range of Rs 6.3 lakh to Rs 43 lakh.
Apart from cash and jewellery, the wives also have more movable assets.
The average holding per candidate is about Rs 10.12 lakh while that of their wives is about Rs 27 lakh.
While the candidates have declared that they possess ornaments worth Rs 3.10 crore in total, the combined value of the spouses' jewellery is Rs 35 crore.
Most of the candidates have declared before the EC that their wives own houses and landed property in more than one place.
Poring over the documents, we found one exception though 27-year-old Jiten Tanti.
Tanti, a Communist Party of India- Marxist Leninist candidate from Teok constituency in Jorhat district, has declared that he has no cash and no money in the bank. Tanti has also declared that he has no other assets.
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