PANAJI: While Goa’s aam aadmi was stressed over price rise, power outages, garbage problem or dishonest officials, its politicians or those aspiring for a place in politics, it appears, were industrious at work in their respective businesses, making a lot of money in the process.

This is evident from the comfortable financial positions of the candidates contesting the state assembly elections to be held on March 3.

Heading the list of candidates with really deep pockets is businessman Mr Dinar Tarcar, contesting from Santacruz, with a declared wealth of Rs 211 crore. He leaves all other contestants way behind in ranking, with a huge gap in money. Interestingly, when Mr Tarcar contested the elections from Panaji constituency in 2007, his declared assets amounted to only Rs 5 crore, at which point he was not the richest among the contesting candidates.

The list, which many believe to be just the tip of the wealth of those in politics, consists of 129 candidates of the 215 contesting the elections. It is compiled by the non-government organisation, Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), and reveals that the independent candidate from Cumbharjua, Ms Nirmala Sawant is the second wealthiest contestant with assets worth Rs 36.30 crore, followed by Congress MLA, Mr Joaquim Alemao - Rs 31.26 crore.

Nearly all the candidates are in the crore bracket, with several prominent figures in the ‘above Rs 25 crore’ range, including Mr Pratapsing Rane - Rs 25 crore. As for Mr Atanasio Monserrate, he and his wife have a respective asset portfolio of Rs 23 crore each.

As for those candidates with declared assets of below Rs five lakh, they are just a few and number three out of 129.

The ADR scrutiny, which is done by comparing figures of 2012 with that of 2007, shows that the average assets of the sitting MLAs in 2012 is Rs 8.10 crore, a nearly 200 per cent increase from Rs 2.70 crore in the previous assembly elections.

The ADR’s representatives, who have also done a comprehensive analysis of the candidates’ background, have come out with several facts on candidates with criminal cases against them.

Candidates with criminal background are increasing, with 23 per cent having pending criminal cases in 2012 as against 18 per cent in 2007. However, this has had no impact on the parties’ ticket awarding practices, with the INC giving the maximum number of tickets followed by the BJP and the AITC. The criminal charges are also serious, ranging from attempt to murder, theft, extortion etc. The contestant with the highest number of criminal cases against him is Mr Francisco (Mickky) Pacheco, contesting from Nuvem. He has ten cases against him for charges relating to extortion and abetment of suicide.

The ADR’s findings were revealed to the media by Mr Bhaskar Assoldekar of the National Election Watch cell. He said that the trend of an increased number of wealthy candidates in Goa is not very different from that observed in the four other states where assembly elections are being held. He said that in general, all politicians have been getting richer and that political parties, in fact, give tickets to only the wealthy candidates and that there is no place for the common man as a political aspirant if he is not wealthy.

Earlier in the day, the ADR got together key speakers from various political parties to present the key features of their election manifestos to the public. The Congress party was represented by its working president, Mr Francisco Sardinha while the BJP was represented by its general secretary in the state, Mr Wilfred Mesquita. Other political party leaders were also present. The ADR plans to come out with the asset profile of the remaining candidates soon and is in the process of collecting information about them.