BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate L K Advani today filed his nomination seeking re-election from Gandhinagar Lok Sabha seat.
Advani and his wife have total assets worth around Rs 3.55 crore. He has three residential houses worth Rs 2.35 crore which includes two houses in Gurgaon worth Rs 92.5 lakh and one in Gandhinagar worth Rs 50 lakh.
In his affidavit for the Lok Sabha elections in 2004, Advani had declared that he and his wife had total assets worth around Rs 1.34 crore in their name and loan liability of Rs 5.54 lakh.
The 81-year-old leader is seeking re-election from the seat for the fifth time. Advani has Rs 20,000 cash while his wife Kamala Advani has cash of Rs 5,000. Advani does not have any bank loan or any other liabilities against him, according to the affidavit. While Advani has deposits in bank of Rs 67.56 lakh, Kamala Advani has Rs 36.56 lakh as deposits.
Advani has disclosed jewellery worth Rs 16 lakh. The BJP's PM candidate is also facing one case in Babri Mosque demolition incident.
Before filing his nomination, Advani offered prayers at the residence of state unit party president Purshottam Rupala where he was accompanied by his wife and daughter.
Gujarat will go to the polls on April 30. The BJP leader first contested the elections to the seat in 1991 when he defeated G I Patel of Congress by 1.3 lakh votes.
Advani did not contest the elections in 1996 on the grounds that he was booked in the Babri demolition case, however former Prime Minister A B Vajpayee contested from the seat besides Lucknow and won.
Advani, who was accompanied by Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, said " If I am on the top, it's due to people like Narendrabhai, who have laid this foundation."
Claiming that BJP and BJP led governments in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar and others have done a better job than governments of the other parties, Advani said the country needs a government (at the Centre), which has served people of India.
Talking on the issue of black money stashed away by Indians in tax havens abroad, Advani today said if government pursued this matter and got back the money, it could be used for country's development.
"Lakhs and crores of rupees of India are kept in foreign countries. If we pursue the matter, there will be no difficulty in the progress of the country... In taking the country to the first position in the world," he said at a rally before filing his nomination papers.
He said, "People in a village in Germany used to deposit money in Liechtenstein. The German government later pressurised the bank to disclose their names...The German Finance Minister later said that if any country asks for the name of its account holders it can be given".
"After this I wrote a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh but received only a formal reply," he said. "After the financial crisis, America pressurised the tax havens to disclose the names of US citizens whose money was lying in the bank and threatened to derecognise major banks if they did not comply so. I have again raised the issue."
