By PTI
CHANDIGARH: AAP’s chief ministerial candidate Bhagwant Mann, contesting from the Dhuri assembly seat in Punjab, has disclosed owning total assets worth Rs 1.97 crore, including two Toyota Fortuner SUVs worth Rs 27 lakh and immovable assets worth Rs 1.49 crore.
The 48-year-old Mann disclosed his assets in his affidavit on his assets and liabilities, filed along with his nomination paper.
Accompanied by his mother, he filed his nomination papers on Saturday before the returning officer in Dhuri for the February 20 Punjab assembly elections.
In his affidavit, Bhagwant Mann deposed having moveable assets worth Rs 48.10 lakh and immovable assets worth Rs 1.49 crore.
Among his movable assets, the comedian-turned-politician has declared two Toyota Fortuner vehicles worth Rs 27 lakh and Chevrolet Cruize worth Rs three lakh.
He also said he owns pieces of gold jewellery weighing 95 gram valued at Rs five lakh, household goods worth Rs 5.50 lakh and a gun worth Rs 20,000.
He has declared his total income worth Rs 18.34 lakh for the year 2020-21.
Mann has declared agricultural land worth Rs 1.12 crore in Sangrur.
He also has commercial properties in Patiala worth Rs 37 lakh.
He does not own residential property, as per his affidavit.
Mann has a car loan worth Rs 22.47 lakh and government dues worth Rs 7.87 lakh which are part of his liabilities, as per the affidavit.
He has done B Com first year in 1992 from Shaheed Udham Singh government college in Sunam in 1992.
The country’s electoral laws enacted on the insistence of the Supreme Court as part of the poll reform require candidates to file an affidavit detailing his assets and liabilities, including those of his spouse and children, besides his educational qualification and criminal antecedents, if any.
Two high-end SUVs, watches worth Rs 44 lakh and residential properties worth Rs 35 crore are part of the total assets declared by Navjot Singh Sidhu, the Congress’ candidate from the Amritsar East assembly seat and its Punjab chief.
The 58-year-old former India cricketer on Saturday filed his nomination papers before the returning officer in Amritsar for the February 20 state assembly elections.
Sidhu in his affidavit, filed along with the nomination papers, declared total assets worth Rs 44.63 crore.
This includes movable and immovable assets, including those of his wife and former MLA Navjot Kaur Sidhu, of Rs 3.28 crore and Rs 41.35 crore respectively.
The Congress leader has also declared his total income for the financial year 2020-21 at Rs 22.58 lakh, down from Rs 94.18 lakh in 2016-17, according to his affidavit.
Among the movable assets, as declared by Sidhu, are two Toyota land cruisers worth Rs 1.19 crore, a Toyota Fortuner worth Rs 11.43 lakh, gold jewellery worth Rs 30 lakh and watches worth Rs 44 lakh.
His wife Navjot Kaur Sidhu owns jewellery worth Rs 70 lakh, according to the affidavit.
Among immovable properties, Sidhu has declared six showrooms in Patiala but he does not have any agricultural land, it stated.
Sidhu has also declared his residential house, an inherited property, spread over 1,200 square yard in Patiala worth Rs 1.44 crore.
He has also shown his 5,114 square yard residential property in Amritsar worth about Rs 34 crore.
The Punjab Congress chief has declared having done B.A. from the Punjabi University in Patiala in 1986 as educational qualification.
He has declared his source of income from salary as MLA, rental income and pension from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
Sidhu on Saturday dared his bête noir Amarinder Singh to leave Patiala and take on him.
He also challenged Shiromani Akali Dal’s Bikram Singh Majithia to fight only from the Amritsar East seat and leave the Majitha assembly constituency.
Apart from the Majitha seat, Majithia, a former Punjab minister, has also entered the fray from Amritsar East from where Sidhu is seeking re-election.
“If you have so much guts and have faith in people then leave Majitha and fight from one seat here. Do you have the guts?” Sidhu dared while interacting with reporters after filing his nomination.
About former chief minister Amarinder Singh’s comment that he would not let Sidhu win, the Punjab Congress president dared him to leave Patiala and contest from Amritsar East.
“Come to Amritsar,” Sidhu said.
Amarinder Singh, who was made to resign as chief minister and later exited the Congress, has floated the Punjab Lok Congress and entered into an electoral tie-up with the BJP.
He will fight from the Patiala Urban seat.
Over Majithia entering the fray from two seats, including Amritsar East, Sidhu said, “They (SAD) have come only to play spoilsport. But in this ‘Dharam Yudh’, they will not succeed. Yato Dharmastato Jayah (Where there is ‘Dharma’, there will be victory).”
Targeting the Akalis, he alleged that they are the people who “looted” Punjab.
Sidhu also hit out at his political opponents for bringing up the reference of his mother, who died over 30 years ago, and accused them of playing dirty politics over it.
“They stooped so low that they brought my mother into it to play politics. I ask them to prove the allegation. You want to bring my mother, who died 35 years ago, for her testimony.”
A day ago, Suman Toor, who claimed to be Sidhu’s elder sister, levelled various allegations against the Punjab Congress chief, including that he had “deserted” their mother after the death of their father in 1986.
However, the Congress leader’s wife Navjot Kaur Sidhu had come forward to issue a clarification.
She claimed that Navjot Kaur Sidhu’s father had married the woman who had two daughters from her previous marriage.
“These two girls (Toor and her sister) along with their mother left the house after taking divorce when Navjot Singh Sidhu was seven-year-old,” she had said.
Meanwhile, Navjot Singh Sidhu said that after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi announced the party would go to the polls with chief ministerial faces, they were in a shock, he said.
Seeking to target his political rivals, Sithu said, “These days even in their dreams they are seeing me and getting scared. A pack of jackals want to hunt a lion.”
He hit out at the Akalis saying how could they think of undertaking developmental works when they “always harassed” people by registering false cases.
“Has Sidhu ever got any case registered against anyone in Punjab in the last 17 years,” Sidhu posed.
He also spoke about his cricketing career and stint on television as he attacked the Akalis accusing him of amassing “ill-gotten” wealth.
“Sidhu today does not earn even 5 per cent of what he was earning earlier,” he said.
Accusing the SAD of diverting the attention of people from the pressing issues of the state, the Punjab Congress chief alleged that they “mortgaged” the state and it under a burden of Rs 3 lakh crore of outstanding debt.
He also said the public support for the Akalis in Amritsar could be gauged “from the fact that despite their assurance of a huge win for BJP leader Arun Jaitley from Amritsar in the 2014 general elections he still suffered defeat”.
Sidhu, who switched over to the Congress from BJP ahead of the 2017 assembly polls, said he was asked to fight the 2014 Lok Sabha polls from Kurukshetra, but he had refused as he did not want to shift from Amritsar.
