The Karnataka assembly elections are scheduled to be held on May 12 and candidates have begun the process of filing their nominations. Among the 100 candidates who have filed nomination so far, Karnataka’s energy minister and Congress leader DK Shivkumar have emerged as the richest.
According to reports, Shivakumar submitted an affidavit on Thursday while filing for nomination papers for the Kanakapura constituency in the Ramanagara district. Shivkumar reportedly filed a 94-page affidavit declaring assets of over 840 crores. This is almost triple of the value of the assets he had declared in 2013 assembly elections. In 2013 he had declared assets worth 251 crores. In 2008, he had declared assets worth 75 crores.
According to reports, Shivkumar has declared cash and bank deposits of Rs 95 crores, immovable properties including resorts, commercial/residential buildings and land worth about 635.8 crores and gold, silver and diamonds worth 1.5 crores. He has also declared the assets and incomes of his daughter Aishwarya to be over 100 crores.
Income tax officials had raided Shivkumar’s properties in August on allegations of Tax evasion. Among the properties raided was the Eagleton Gulf Village Resort where Shivkumar had earlier hosted the 43 Congress MLAs from Gujrat before the Rajya Sabha elections last year.
During the I-T department raid, Shivkumar was reportedly found destroying evidence and he was taken away by the officials for questioning. The Congress party had created a ruckus in the Parliament alleging that the BJP is using the I-T department to witch hunt its leaders. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had refuted these claims stating that Shivkumar was caught destroying important documents and the documents were later recovered by the officials.
The 55-year-old Minister has also been in the news for misbehaving with the public. In February he was seen in a video slapping a man trying to take a selfie with him. Earlier in November too, he was caught on video slapping a student trying to take a selfie during a press conference.
Shivkumar is said to be a protege of former Union Minister SM Krishna. He has a strong following among party workers and is currently the head of the campaigning committee for the state assembly elections.
