Union minister K J Alphons and Shashi Tharoor file nominations

Thiruvananthapuram, April (PTI): Union Minister K J Alphons and sitting Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor were among the 32 candidates who filed their nominations Monday for the April 23 Lok Sabha elections from Kerala. Alphons, the former IAS officer-turned politician, is the BJP candidate contesting from Ernakulam constituency. The Congress-UDF candidate from the constitutency, Hibi Eden, also filed his papers. Other UDF candidates who submitted their papers Monday are: K Muraleedharan (Vatakara), T N Pratapan (Thrissur), Benny Behanan (Chalakudy), Kodikunnel Suresh (Mavelikkara), N K Premachandran (RSP-UDF) (Kollam), Adoor Prakash (Attingal), and Remya Haridas (Alathur). LDF candidate Chittayam Gopakumar (CPI) (Mavelikkara) and BJP-NDA candidates Sabu Varghese (kollam), Unnikrishnan (Malappuram) and V T Rema (Ponnani) also filed their nominations. According to officials, 84 candidates have filed their papers since March 28. The last date for filing nominations is April 4. Shashi Tharoor has total assets of over INR 35 crore The affidavit filed by senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Monday while submitting his nomination papers for the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat showed he has assets over Rs 35 crore. A former union minister, Tharoor, who is seeking reelection to the Lok Sabha in the April 23 polls, has declared a total of INR 34,00,22,585 as movable assets, while he has immovable assets worth Rs one crore. According to the affidavit, his total income for the year 2017-18 was INR 3,66,21,978. He has over INR 15 crore investments in company shares, bonds and mutual fund investments. He also owns two cars, the affidavit said, which also mentioned that he has INR 25,000 as cash in hand. The affidavit filed before the district collector says Tharoor has a bank deposit of over INR 5.88 crore across various banks in the country and abroad. Tharoor mentioned in his affidavit that his source of income was the MP salary, UN pension, Books and Articles Royalty and fee for speeches. The affidavit also mentions that there are two criminal cases pending against Tharoor. In the last Lok Sabha election, Tharoor had declared total assets of about INR 23 crore.