Of rich wives, swanky sedans and big bucks

And both are put to shame by the glamorous wife of Bansi Lal’s son, Surender Singh, whose gems and jewellery have been valued at Rs 25.34 lakh. Needless to say, all of them have some catching up to do with Savitri Jindal, wife of steel magnate Om Prakash Jindal, whose gold ornaments are worth Rs 65.75 lakh.

However, these declarations may not even be entirely indicative of the wealth amassed by the state’s politicians. Undervaluing of assets in poll affidavits, if discovered, ‘‘invite usual action under the law applicable for submitting wrong information in an affidavit’’ but provides no grounds for disqualification of a candidate.

‘‘A wrong affidavit is no ground for rejection of nomination papers as it is taken to substantiate only the right to information. Also, the Returning Officer has no mechanism to check authenticity of information provided in affidavits,’’ says Urvashi Gulati, Chief Electoral Officer, Haryana.

So if the wives of Bhajan Lal, Surender Singh, Chautala and Jindal are all shown to have huge assets while those of their spouses are sometimes pegged lower, there is very little verification likely. Bhajan Lal, for instance has shown net assets of about Rs 3.18 crore while his wife’s are estimated at Rs 5.32 crore. And Chautala has disclosed his net worth at about Rs 4.70 crore while wife Sneh Lata’s worth is estimated at Rs 95 lakh.

In the case of the Jindals, his assets are estimated at Rs 20.21 crore while hers are pegged at Rs 5.57 crore. Similarly, Surender Singh’s cash deposits and properties have been evaluated at Rs 2.56 crore against his politician wife Kiran Chaudhary’s Rs 3.15 crore. Singh also has loans of Rs 11.20 lakh receivable from daughter Shruti and Rs 4 lakh receivable from Highway Resorts, Rewari.

Although former state Congress chief Birender Singh does not rank highly in the asset sweepstakes, he has declared himself and his wife Prem Lata as proud owners of a Ford Ikon and a Toyota Corolla respectively.

Chautala and his wife do not have a vehicle to their name, and even Bhajan Lal has just one Maruti Gypsy. However, Bhajan Lal’s son Chander Mohan, the party candidate from Kalka, has a Pajero worth Rs 23 lakh. The Jindals too are silent on vehicles.

Congress candidate from Narwana, Randeep Singh Surjewala, according to sources, has agricultural land with Rs 12.5 lakh approximately and has deposits worth lakhs in banks, financial institutions and non-banking financial companies with wife, Gayatri Surjewala.