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Chandigarh MC election: Cong leader Babla’s sister and wife are richest candidates in fray
Balwinder Kaur, sister of senior Congress leader Devinder Singh Babla, tops the list with total assets worth ₹34.88 crore; Babla’s wife Harpreet Kaur is the second richest with ₹31.34-crore assets.
The Congress has fielded the four richest candidates in the Chandigarh municipal elections, which are scheduled on December 24.
Balwinder Kaur, sister of senior Congress leader Devinder Singh Babla, tops the list with total assets worth ₹34.88 crore. She is in the fray from Ward No. 15. Babla’s wife Harpreet Kaur, who is contesting from Ward No. 10, is the second richest with ₹31.34-crore assets.
The third richest candidate is Vijay Singh Rana, who is in the fray from Ward No. 33 and has declared assets worth ₹26.95 crore. The fourth is former councillor Jagjit Singh Kang, who is contesting from Ward No. 29 and has declared assets worth ₹22.94 crore in his nomination papers.
The total assets include both movable and immovable owned by the candidate and their spouse. Balwinder Kaur and her husband and senior Congress leader Roopinder Singh’s combined assets of ₹26 crore made her the richest candidate in the 2016 municipal elections too. At the time, she had fought on the SAD ticket and lost.
Her moveable properties are worth ₹60.93 lakh, and her husband’s are worth ₹1.14 crore. The immovable assets, including an industrial plot in Mohali and house in Chandigarh’s Sector 27, are listed at ₹33.74 crore.
Bablas were the second richest in last MC polls as well, when their worth was reported at ₹23 crore. Last time, Devinder had fought the election and is the leader of opposition in the present MC House.
The couple owns five cars, including Mercedes Benz, Kia Seltos, Toyota Innova, Mahindra Thar and Maruti Esteem, besides an electric golf cart. They also own jewellery worth more than a crore, while Devinder owns a licensed .30 BA Rifle and .30 Bore Pistol worth ₹2.5 lakh. The total worth of their movable assets is ₹3.38 crore.
Their immovable assets are worth ₹29.4 crore, and include an agricultural land in Parol village besides commercial buildings and industrial plots in Chandigarh and Mohali.
Others in the crore club
Nitika Gupta, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from Ward No. 5, has listed total assets worth ₹10.82 crore.
Former deputy mayor Harmohinder Singh Lucky, who is the Congress candidate from Ward No. 2, has immovable asset worth ₹8.85 crore and moveable assets worth ₹87.90 lakh. Also, in the crore club isBhupinder Badheri, Congress candidate from Ward No. 30, who is worth ₹7.68 crore.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Manaur, from Ward No. 29, has listed assets totalling ₹6.2 crore, while Jasbir Singh, who is the party candidate from Ward No. 21, is worth ₹5.92 crore. AAP poll campaign in-charge Chandermukhi Sharma has declared ₹3.04-crore assets.
Jasbir Singh, a Congress candidate from Ward No. 24, has declared assets worth ₹4.10 crore. Mayor Ravi Kant Sharma is worth ₹3.14 crore while former BJP mayor Davesh Moudgil is worth ₹2.67 crore. Gurbax Rawat, sitting Congress councillor and candidate from Ward No. 27, has ₹2 crore worth assets.
The list also includes Manmohan Kaur (Ward 23) with ₹4.44 crore, Neha Arora (Ward 23) with ₹2.20 crore, Yashpal (Ward 25) with ₹2.11 crore, Gurvinder Kaur (Ward 1) and Darshana (Ward 5) with ₹2 crore, and Jannat Jahan (Ward 4) with ₹1.95 crore.
322 nominations filed
According to the state election commission, 322 candidates filed their nominations, which also include covering candidates. Election documents of 316 have already uploaded on the SIC mobile app, while the rest will be uploaded on Sunday.
At 14 each, maximum nominations came from Wards No. 8 and 29. The lowest came from Ward No. 11, from where only five people filed the papers. The candidates have time till December 9 to withdraw their nomination.
