Growth in MLAs’ assets outshines yellow metal – ToI –19.5.11

Atul Thakur | TIG

    When it comes to increasing wealth, legislative experience, it turns out, beats the best investment planning hollow. An analysis of the assets of re-contesting legislators certainly suggests that with the growth in their assets being more than what investing in gold, mutual funds or fixed deposits would yield.
    According to analysis of affidavits done by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW), the percentage growth in the assets of re-contesting MPs in the 2009 LS polls was 289% over the intervening five years. In the recent assembly elections, ADRs comparisons based on assets of 337 re-contesting candidates from four states and one Union Territory indicated that the average increase ranged from 71% to 195%. Ask any fund manager to match that kind of return.
    TN topped the list with its 97 re-contesting MLAs having almost tripled their assets in the past five years, an increase of 195%. Assam was just a little behind with the average increase there being 187% and Kerala another step back at 175%. Puducherry with an average of 136% growth in assets and West Bengal with a much lower 71% brought up the rear.
    Gold, which convincingly beats most other investments, would have at 138%, yielded you a return comparable to the Puducherry level over these last five years. But even its glitter would fade before the levels achieved in the two southern states and Assam.
    Obviously, if gold investment could not match up to the financial acumen of the average recontesting MLA, other investments too don’t stand any chance. The average annual return from MFs in the past five years was 10.86%, which meant a 67% rise over the five-year period from 2006. Over the same period, sensex rose by 64%, again not a patch on the assets of legislators.
    An FD in a bank would on average have appreciated by 46%, give or take a little depending on which bank you chose to invest in.
    All of this might seem to suggest that the best way of making your assets grow by leaps and bounds is to become a member of some legislative body. There is, however, an obvious catch. You would need to get elected in the first place, and that’s no easy job.