Seven richest candidates in Karnataka lose including Nilekani
Nandan Nilekani, who was the richest candidate in fray for the 16th Lok Sabha, was defeated by BJP's Ananth Kumar, who retained the Bangalore South seat for the sixth time winning it by a huge margin of over 2,27,000 votes. The IT czar, who was chief architect of Aadhar programme, has declared assets worth over Rs 7,700 crore. Initially, it looked as though he was giving a run for the money to his formidable rival but the constituency did not break from its anti-Congress tradition prevailing since the late 1970s.
Another technocrat and Nilekani's former Infoysian colleague Balakrishnan contesting as AAP candidate finished a poor third behind BJP's PC Mohan and Congress' Rizwan Arshad in Bangalore Central. He is ranked third on the list with close to Rs 190 crore assets.
Interestingly, both men conceded defeat even before the poll results were officially announced. Real estate developer and JDS candidate P Prabhakar Reddy did not find acceptance of the Bangalore rural electorate. He has assets of over Rs 220 crore and liabilities to the tune of Rs 221 crore.
Former
Prime
Minister
HD
Deve
Gowda's
son
and
former
Chief
Minister
HD
Kumaraswamy
came
third,
losing
to
Union
Minister
Veerappa
Moily
in
Chikkaballapur
constituency.
He
has
assets
worth
Rs
149
crore.
Prashant
Deshpande,
son
of
Karnataka
Minister
RV
Deshpande,
and
SS
Mallikarjun
(both
Congress)
and
former
minister
Jeevraj
Alva's
wife
Nandini
Alva
(JDS),
who
was
short
of
the
Rs
100
crore
mark
by
only
few
lakhs,
lost
from
Uttar
Kannada,
Davanagere
and
Bangalore
Central,
respectively.
Karnataka is one of the important states which gave good seat tally to BJP, sending 17 of its candidates to Lok Sabha. BJP has made a remarkable recovery ever since the party lost power in the Assembly polls.
IANS