Bihar Election 2025 Phase 1 Voting: Richest candidate has ₹373 crore net worth, poorest owns zero assets

Bihar Election 2025 Phase 1 Voting: The first phase of the Bihar Elections 2025, for 121 seats, is being held today. The second phase for 122 seats is scheduled on 11 November.

The results will be announced on 14 November.

The incumbent National Democratic Alliance (NDA), comprising the Janata Dal (United) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is being challenged by the Mahagathbandhan, or the Grand Alliance, comprising the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Congress, and other parties.

Overall, 2,600 candidates are contesting for 243 seats. Of these 1,081(42%) are crorepatis. In the 2020 Bihar Assembly Elections, out of 3,722 candidates, 1,231 (33%) were crorepatis.

The average of assets per candidate contesting in the Bihar Assembly Elections 2025 is ₹3.35 crore. In the 2020 Bihar Assembly Elections, the average assets per candidate for 3,722 candidates were ₹1.72 crore.

Here is a list of the 5 richest and 5 poorest candidates in the Bihar Elections.

The Richest Five

Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) candidate from Lauriya in West Champaran district, Ran Kaushal Pratap Singh alias Guddu Singh, a builder, is the richest among all candidates in the Bihar poll fray as he has declared his assets worth ₹373 crore in an affidavit. Lauriya's seat votes in the second phase on 11 November.

VIP is contesting elections as part of the opposition Mahagathbandhan. The party chief, Mukesh Sahani, is the deputy chief ministerial candidate of the Mahagathbandhan.

Singh has declared non-agricultural assets worth ₹352 crore, shares and securities worth ₹5.51 crore and agricultural land worth ₹2.58 crore. His wife, too, has assets worth ₹131 crore and investments worth ₹6.59 crore.

Singh’s family owns seven luxury vehicles and jewellery worth around 3.4 kg of gold. Singh himself possesses 600 grams of gold and diamond jewellery, and they also own foreign-made firearms. Singh has also loans of around ₹14.46 crore in his name and ₹1.12 crore in his wife’s name.

Singh is pitted against three-time sitting MLA Vinay Bihari, a Bhojpuri film singer who won the last two Assembly elections in 2015 and 2020 on the BJP ticket. In the 2010 polls, Bihari had won as an independent candidate.

The Election Watchdog, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), and Bihar Election Watch have analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 2,600 out of 2,616 candidates who are contesting the Bihar 2025 Assembly Elections.

Out of 2,616 contesting candidates, 431 are from national parties, 351 are from state parties, 908 are from registered unrecognised parties, and 926 candidates are contesting independently.

Kumar Pranay of the BJP, contesting from the Munger seat, is the richest candidate in phase 1. Pranay has declared a net worth of ₹170 crore in his affidavit.

Pranay's movable assets, which include cash, bank deposits, shares, and other investments, are valued at ₹83.35 crore. His immovable assets include agricultural and non-agricultural land, along with buildings, with a current market value of ₹86.65 crore.

His wife's declared movable assets are worth ₹132 crore. The ADR report lists 519 (40%) of the 1,303 candidates in the first phase as millionaires.

Pranay is the sitting MLA from Munger. He won the seat in 2020 but lost in 2015. This time, Pranay is contesting against RJD's Avinash Vidyathi.

Nitish Kumar, the Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party candidate from the Gaya seat, is also among the richest candidates in the Bihar elections. Kumar has declared a net worth of about ₹250 crore in his affidavit. Gurua votes in the second phase on 11 November.

Raj Kishor Gupta, independent candidate from the Maharajganj seat in Siwan, has declared a net worth of ₹137 crore.

JD-U strongman Anant Kumar Singh, who is contesting from the Mokama seat, has a net worth of ₹100 crore. Singh was recently arrested in connection with a murder in his constituency.

The Poorest Five

One candidate of BSP, Sunil Kumar Choudhary, contesting from Pirpainti (SC) constituency, has declared zero assets.

Mojahid Alam of the SUCI(C) party is among the poorest candidates, with a declared net worth of just ₹1,000. Alam, a candidate from Darbhanga seat, is perhaps the poorest candidate in 2025 Bihar election. Alam is contesting against the BJP's sitting MLA, Sanjay Saraogi, and the RJD's Om Prakash Kheria from the Darbhanga seat, which votes on 6 November.

Suresh Rajvanshi, a candidate of Moolniwasi Samaj Party from Wazirganj seat in Gaya district, is the poorest candidate in phase two. Rajvnashi has declared a net worth of ₹1,100 in the affidavit. He is up against the BJP's Birendra Singh and the Congress party's Shashi Shekhar Singh in the elections. The BJP won the seat in 2020 while the Congress won it in 2015 polls.

Shatrudhan Varma, a candidate of the People's Party of India (Democratic) from Barh in Patna, has also declared a net worth of ₹1,000, while Shiv Kumar Yadav of SUCI (C), a candidate from Minapur in Muzaffarpur, has a net worth of ₹2,023.