Indian American Doctor Richest Political Candidate In India
India-West News Desk
DALLAS, TX – With family assets of more than Rs 5,705 crore, Indian American doctor Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar may be the richest candidate in the Lok Sabha elections.
The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) candidate from Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur constituency on April 22 declared his family assets in the affidavit submitted to the Election Commission while filing his nomination for the May 13 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.
As per the affidavit, Chandra Sekhar and his wife Koneru Sriratna are both in business. In 2001, during his medical residency, he began writing case-based learning questions for the US Medical Licensing Exam due to the poor quality and high cost of available study resources at the time.
Originally intending to publish the 250 questions he had written as a book, he instead posted them in online forums. The response was overwhelming, with a high demand for more. With the assistance of his brother, Ravi Shankar Pemmasani, and his wife, Sriratna Koneru, who were both at Virginia Tech University, UWorld (formerly USMLE World) was born.
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.
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. (with IANS inputs)
