The upcoming phase of elections, set for May 25, will witness a showdown of affluent businessmen, including the scion of India’s wealthiest woman. The leading contender in this wealth-driven race is Naveen Jindal, the Chairman of Jindal Steel and Power, with declared assets amounting to a staggering ₹1,241.47 crore.
The Chancellor of O. P. Jindal Global University, he is the BJP candidate from Haryana’s Kurukshetra, a constituency he represented as an MP between 2004 and 2014. Formerly, a member of the Indian National Congress, Jindal recently switched alliances and joined the BJP in March 2024. Jindal is the youngest son of Savitri Jindal, the richest Indian woman. Naveen Jindal’s previous affidavits show that in ten years, his wealth grew by more than ₹1000 crore, mostly owing to the increase in the share prices of his company, Jindal Steel and Power.
Jindal’s major rival in Kurukshetra, is incidentally the third richest candidate in the sixth phase of the election – Aam Aadmi Party’s Sushil Gupta, with declared assets worth ₹169.57 crore. According to his website, Gupta runs six schools, all named ‘Ganga International School’.
The second richest candidate is Biju Janata Dal’s greenhorn Santrupt Misra. Misra is the CEO of the Aditya Birla Group and has declared assets worth ₹482.21 crore. He is the party’s candidate from Odisha’s Cuttack.
The next person on the list is Naina Singh Chautala, the mother of former Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala. The Jannayak Janta Party candidate from Haryana’s Hisar, has declared assets worth ₹139.71 crore, most of which come from loans and advances that she and her husband have given. Chautala is an MLA in the Haryana Legislative Assembly. She is the wife of politician Ajay Singh Chautala and the daughter-in-law of former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala.
Union Minister Rao Inderjit Singh, contesting from Gurgaon is the fifth-richest phase VI candidate. Singh has been the MP from Gurgaon since 2014, first representing the Indian National Congress and later, switching to the BJP. He has assets worth ₹121.54 crore, most of which tied to a piece of agricultural land.
Apart from the five of them, just one other person in the upcoming phase has declared assets with a value of more than ₹100 crore. He is an independent candidate named Fauji Jai Kawar Tyagi (Dixit), facing the polls from Gurgaon, against Rao Inderjit Singh and others. Tyagi has assets worth ₹113 crore. His affidavit says that he is a government employee and has fought the 2019 polls unsuccessfully from the same constituency. At that time, he was a candidate of Daksha Party and had assets worth ₹6.42 crore. The 2024 affidavit shows that his assets remained similar. However, the value of a piece of land he owned, worth ₹4 crore, has now gone up to ₹106.97 crore
