According to a research from the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW), Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president and state deputy chief minister D K Shivakumar is the richest MLA in the country, with assets worth Rs 1,413 crore.
That isn’t everything. Karnataka MLAs dominate the list of the country’s richest MLAs, with 12 in the top 20. According to the ADR report, 14% of Karnataka MLAs are billionaires (worth Rs 100 crore), the highest in the country, and the legislators’ average assets are Rs 64. 3 crore.
Karnataka MLAs hold the top three spots on the list. KH Puttaswamy Gowda, an independent politician and businessman from Gauribidanur, 80 kilometers from Bengaluru, is the second richest. Gowda is worth Rs 1,267 crore but has liabilities of only Rs 5 lakh.
Priyakrishna, the youngest Congress MLA in Karnataka’s assembly, is the third richest. The 39-year-old has disclosed Rs 1,156 crore in assets. The advocacy organization studied 4,001 sitting legislators from 28 legislatures and two UTs. Overall, the poorest MLA in India is Nirmal Kumar Dhara from West Bengal’s Indus constituency, who has an asset of Rs 1,700 and no liabilities.
Bhagirathi Murulya of the BJP is the poorest MLA elected to the Karnataka legislative assembly, with assets of Rs 28 lakh and liabilities of Rs 2 lakh.
Shivakumar disclosed in his 2023 affidavit filed with the Election Commission that he has a total of Rs 273 crore worth fixed assets and Rs 1,140 crore in movable assets.
Shivakumar has Rs 265 crore in liabilities, whereas Gowda has Rs 990 crore in immovable assets and Rs 276 crore in moveable assets.
Interestingly, Priyakrishna has the largest liabilities of any politician in the country, with Rs 881 crore. His father, M Krishnappa, was ranked number 18 on the list of Karnataka’s top billionaires.
The other Karnataka MLA on the list is mining baron Gali Janardhana Reddy, who is ranked number 23. The majority of Reddy’s assets are listed in the name of his wife, Aruna Lakshmi, who also ran for assembly in 2023 with their own party, Kalyana Rajya Pragathi Paksha (KRPP).
The majority of billionaires voted
Karnataka elected the most billionaires in the country in the recent assembly elections, with 32 of them owning assets worth more than Rs 100 crore. Aside from the 19 billionaires from the Congress, the other billionaires include nine from the BJP, two from the JD(S), one from the KRPP, and one independent.
On the other hand, the Karnataka legislature has seen a significant “gain” in terms of legislators elected, with 62% of the state’s 224 legislators being either graduates (50%) or postgraduates (12%).