Bengaluru: An unknown face, but shot up to fame after Congress candidate Yusuf Sharif here on Tuesday declared his assets worth Rs 1,743 crore including Rolls Royce car bought from Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan before the state election commission for contesting the ensuing Karnataka Vidhan Parishad election.
His is a rags-to-riches story. Started off as a scrap dealer, Sharif rose to riches after he forayed into the realty sector. He owns Umrah Developers and has stakes in five other real estate companies.
A class five dropout, Sharif was fortunate to have bagged a scrap deal with Indian Railways during the tenure of late Congress leader CK Jaffer Sharief, when he was the Railways Minister.
The assets declaration also mentioned that he was raided by Income Tax authorities and levied tax dues worth Rs 13.43 crore and has four criminal cases pending against him under various IPC sections.
The Congress has already announced the names of 20 candidates for the biennial elections.
Next richest candidate for the biennial election is Congress candidate from Chitradurga and KPCC President DK Shivakumar's close aide B Somashekhar, whose assets are worth Rs 116 crore.
BJP's Dharwad candidate Pardeep Shettar follows Somashekhar, whose assets are Rs 89 crore as per the affidavit submitted to the state election commission.
JDS party's Suraj Revanna, who is the grandson of ex-PM Deve Gowda, is also worth Rs 61.68 crore and has a loan of Rs 14 crore.
BC Manju, a close associate of BS Yediyurappa's son BY Vijayendra, is worth Rs 66 crore and owns 50 high-end cars and would be contesting from Mandya.
Appaji Gowda of the JDS, a close aide of HD Kumaraswamy, declared assets worth Rs 33 crore in the election affidavit. He takes on BJP's Manju.
BJP's candidate Naveen from Chitradurga is worth Rs 26 crore and has filed an I-T return of Rs 38.69 lakh last year.
The election to 25 Legislative Council seats will be held on December 10 as their term is ending on January 5 next. The results will be declared on December 14. (UNI)