New Delhi, Oct 25 (IANS): Over 23 per cent of the candidates contesting the Assembly by-elections in Madhya Pradesh are crorepatis, a maximum of them from the BJP and the Congress, data collated by the Madhya Pradesh Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) said.

The analysed the self-sworn affidavits of all 355 candidates in the fray in 28 Assembly constituencies for the November 3 election.

As per the data, 80 (23 per cent) of the 355 candidates are crorepatis or multi-millionaires with average assets of Rs 1.10 crore.

Of the total, 15 (four per cent) candidates hold assets of Rs 5 crore and above, 25 (seven per cent) own assets valued between Rs 2 crore and Rs 5 crore, 77 (22 per cent) between Rs 55 lakh and Rs 2 crore and 100 (28 per cent) between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 50 lakh. In all, 138 candidates (39 per cent) have assets less than Rs 10 lakh.

Party-wise, 23 (82 per cent) out of 28 BJP candidates, 22 (79 per cent) out of 28 candidates of Congress, 13 (46 per cent) of 28 Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) nominees, two (14 per cent) of 14 Samajwadi Party candidates and 14 (8 per cent) out of 178 Independent candidates whose affidavits were analysed declared assets worth more than Rs 1 crore.

The details of top three candidates vis-a-vis declared assets are Congress' Premchand Guddu, BJP's Dr Susheel Kumar Prasad and Rajvardhan Singh Dattigaon with assets of more than Rs 86 crore, over Rs 15 crore and Rs 13 crore respectively.

Guddu is contesting from Indore while Prasad and Dattigaon are contesting from Rajgarh and Dhar respectively.

The three candidates with least assets are Peoples Party of India's (Democratic) China Begam, and Independent candidates Saurav Vyas and Shekh Jakir Sheikh.

A total of 113 (32 per cent) candidates have declared liabilities in their affidavits. Six candidates with assets of more than Rs 2 crore have not declared Income Tax details.