Mighty Coronavirus Too Failed To Affect Politicians’ Income

 Hyderabad: The Covid-19 lockdown had affected crores of people, with no salary or reduced salary. With customers remaining confined to their homes, it pushed lakhs of businesses into losses and many shut down. However, some politicians seemed to have bucked the trend.

A perusal of affidavits filed by politicians contesting the Lok Sabha elections show that their income was not affected by the pandemic. In fact, it significantly grew between 2019-20 and 2022-23, the Covid years.

The total income shown by M. Raghunandan Rao (BJP, Medak) was Rs 9.97 lakh in 2019-20 and Rs 19.18 lakh in 2020-21, a jump of nearly Rs 10 lakh. In 2021-22, his income was Rs 4.89 lakh, after exempting Rs 27.6 lakh constituency allowance. In 2022-23, his income was Rs 1.33 crore, according to the election affidavit.

B. Vinod Kumar (BRS, Karimnagar), showed an income of Rs 11.41 lakh in 2018-19. In 2019-20, it increased to Rs 19.48 lakh and surged to Rs 33.42 lakh in 2020-21. In 2021-22, his income was slightly less Rs 33.28 lakh and Rs 33.13 lakh in 2022-23.

The income of Velichala Rajender Rao (Congress, Khammam) income rose from Rs 1.65 crore in 2018-19 to Rs 2.36 crore in 2019-20.

Konda Vishweshwar Reddy (BJP, Chevella) saw his income dip from Rs 21.45 crore in FY 2019-20 to Rs 4.65 crore in 2022-23 but his assets increased significantly.

Vishweshwar Reddy declared his family assets, including those of wife Sangita Reddy and son Viraj Reddy, at Rs 4,568 crore. G. Ranjith Reddy (Congress, Chevella) showed an income of Rs 3.6 crore in 2019-20 and Rs 5.12 crore in 2020-21.