With assets worth Rs 5,705 crore, TDP's NRI candidate may be richest in fray

With family assets worth more than Rs 5,705 crore, NRI medical professional Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar may be the richest candidate in the Lok Sabha elections 2024.

The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) candidate from Andhra Pradesh's Guntur constituency on Monday, 22 April, declared his family assets in the affidavit submitted to the Election Commission while filing his nomination for the 13 May election.

The founder and CEO of ‘UWorld’ has left behind Konda Vishweshwar Reddy, the BJP candidate from Chevella Lok Sabha constituency in Telangana, who, earlier in the day, declared family assets of Rs 4,568 crore.

Vishweshwar Reddy had declared family assets of Rs 895 crore in 2019 while Chandra Sekhar is making his electoral debut with the next month’s election.

As per the affidavit, Chandra Sekhar and his wife Koneru Sriratna are both in business.

The 48-year-old did his M.D. in internal medicine at Geisinger Medical Centre in Danville, Pennsylvania, in 2005. Chandra Sekhar’s immovable assets are valued at Rs 2,316.54 crore while that of his wife are Rs 2,289.35 crore.

Dependent son Abhinav Pemmasani owns movable assets of Rs 496.27 crore while dependent daughter Sahasra Pemmasani has movable assets of Rs 496.47 crore.

The couple jointly have an investment of Rs.2,402.36 crore in publicly listed companies in the US.

Chandra Sekhar owns five vehicles worth Rs 6.11 crore including two Mercedes Benz, a Tesla Model X, and a Rolls Royce Ghost.

He has movable assets of Rs 72 crore while those of his wife are valued at Rs 34.82 crore. They have liabilities of Rs 519 crore each.

The family has cumulative offshore assets of Rs 16.51 crore.

In the calendar year 2022, the couple had a joint income of Rs 605.57 crore. The same was Rs 643.42 crore during 2021.

The TDP decided to field Chandra Sekhar from Guntur after sitting MP and business tycoon Galla Jayadev decided not to contest as he wanted to stay away from politics.

Hailing from Burripalem village of Guntur district, Chandra Sekhar did his MBBS from the Osmania Medical College in Hyderabad in 1999. Later, he moved to the US and completed post-graduation. He served as faculty at Johns Hopkins University and practices as a physician. He has been active in charity activities, helping students coming to the US from India for higher education in medicine.

He launched a non-profit NGO “UWorld” to help poor students.

Chandra Sekhar bagged the prestigious Ernst and Young award as a young entrepreneur in 2020 competing with about 200 top business leaders in the US. He also founded the Pemmasani Foundation, which organises health camps and supplies drinking water in villages in Guntur and Narasaraopet constituencies.