Tripura CM Manik not in the list of top 10 poorest candidates

Agartala/Kamalpur: Believe it or not; the Marxist 'honest face' and Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar's name does not figure in the list of 10 candidates with lowest assets in the February 18 state polls.According to a report from the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), in fact none from the CPI-M figure in the list of 'Ten candidates with lowest assets'.Khagendra Reang from Raima Valley constituency and hailing from little known Tripura People's Party (TPP) is shown in the survey as the "poorest" with moveable assets of Rs 100 only.

Other candidates who figure in this list are either from TPP, Independent or from Tipraland State Party (TSP). However, among the established and well-known parties the name of Trinamool Congress nominee Kuheli Das Sinha figure in this list figure at number 5.Das Sinha is shown with an moveable asset of Rs 839 only.The CPI-M has often said that its Chief Minister Manik Sarkar's probity doesn't have much moveable and immovable properties.Not long ago, he was also given the tag of 'poorest Chief Minister'.

The Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in his campaign rally at Barjala play ground on February 3 sought to puncture the Marxists’ claim that they have a clean Chief Minister in Manik Sarkar. Mr Singh had also drawn a parallel between Mr Sarkar and Dr Manmohan Singh - under whom the UPA government had faced corruption charges."I want to tell the Chief Minister here (reference to Tripura CM Mr Sarkar) that if you are Mr Clean then why did audit report refer to alleged corruption cases. Why these are there?," the Union Home Minister has said.

Other BJP leaders also accuse Mr Sarkar of pretending to be 'Mr Clean'. Bishwabandhu Sen, BJP candidate from Dharmanagar, told UNI: "We have a clean white-kurta pyjama man going around in the state...but he is not as clean as he claims".In the survey report of ADR, it is also claimed that 22 per cent of nine Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) candidates face criminal cases.

The break up also shows 22 per cent of 51 BJP candidates facing criminal cases and 18 per cent facing 'serious' criminal cases.Among the CPI-M nominees, two per cent face serious criminal cases while four per cent of them face criminal cases.Out of 297 candidates analysed, the report shows 35 of them - that is 12 per cent are crorepatis.From among the 51 BJP candidates, 18 are shown as crorepatis while nine out of 59 Congress candidates are shown with assets more than Rs 1 crore. BJP's ally IPFT has only one candidate with properties more than Rs 1 crore while among the 57 CPI-M candidates - only four of them are crorepatis.(UNI)