Jaipur, Nov. 13: Princess Diya Kumari may have it in her genes. Bimla Jindal has it in her beans.

Bimla, a 56-year-old homemaker contesting the December 1 Rajasthan polls, has topped the state’s list of rich candidates.

Her assets of Rs 2,762 crore are over 300 times that of Diya, the royal scion contesting as BJP nominee from a seat near family turf Jaipur.

The figures — based on papers filed at the time of nominations — suggest Bimla’s wealth is nearly 700 times that of BJP chief ministerial candidate Vasundhara Raje.

The source of Bimla’s empire lies in the family business of the humble guar — a type of bean that is crushed and used as an adhesive in a variety of industrial applications.

Bimla’s husband, “guar king” B.D. Agarwal, owns Rs 1,558 crore, or more than half of the assets mentioned in her poll affidavit. Bimla’s own movable property is pegged at Rs 276.88 crore and immovable assets at Rs 929.16 crore, according to the papers.

Cut to Diya. The 43-year-old’s assets add up to Rs 9 crore. Her family doesn’t swell her kitty by much — husband Narendra Kunwar has only Rs 6 lakh in cash in banks and son Padmanabh Rs 1 lakh, according to her poll papers filed in Sawai Madhopur.

Vasundhara, also a royal scion, has assets worth Rs 4.12 crore — a figure that would pale not just in comparison with Bimla’s but also that of the homemaker’s daughter.

Diya Kumari (in PTI picture top) has a meal in a villager’s house while campaigning near Sawai Madhopur on Wednesday; Bimla Jindal (centre) , Rajasthan’s richest candidate

Kamini, contesting from the very two seats from where her mother is in the fray, has declared assets of Rs 197 crore. Both are candidates of the National Unionist Zamindara Party, a family-floated outsfit that is making its debut this time in what is essentially a contest between the ruling Congress and the BJP. The presence of the two has prompted speculation on whether Kamini is a dummy candidate aimed at splitting rivals’ votes.

The party is contesting 13 seats in all but if local pollsters are to be believed, it has a chance in only two — and they don’t include Ganganagar and nearby Sangaria from where the mother-daughter duo are in the race.

Bimla — who uses her Jindal gotra (sub-caste) instead of her husband’s Agarwal surname — is director of Vikas WSP Ltd, the Sriganganagar-based family firm touted as one of the world’s leading manufacturer and exporter of guar gum products.

The guar is a ubiquitous feature of the landscape in Rajasthan’s western and north-western districts. India accounts for 90 per cent of the world’s guar production, of which 72 per cent comes from Rajasthan.

Guar is mainly used in food, paper and textile industries but in recent years, its application increased manifold after it began to be used as adhesives in the shale gas and oil industries. And, as the demand boomed, so did the profits of guar farmers and traders.

Little wonder then that Agarwal, Bimla’s husband and the chief of Vikas WSP, donated Rs 200 crore to the state for a medical college in Ganganagar. The foundation was laid by chief minister Ashok Gehlot this September.

“The Zamindara Party was formed in September this year and has been active in the field of education and health care,” party worker Raghu said.

The party — which also has a Facebook site featuring its campaigns — is counting on the support of guar farmers, around 3.5 lakh of them. It is promising them better rates and more international buyers.

Agarwal, who has units in Ganganagar and Jodhpur, has demanded better facilities for them from the state government and distributed guar seeds free to 1 lakh farmers at a recent rally.

All that does not seem to have impressed rivals, though. BJP and Congress workers in Ganganagar say distributing free seeds will not win Bimla’s party votes. “One needs to be connected to the people and the (Zamindara) party is a one-man show,” a BJP worker said.

Whatever the poll results, Bimla will remain “unbeatable”. Her wealth will dwarf that of sitting MLA Udaylal Anjna, the state’s richest Congress candidate with assets of over Rs 65 crore. Ditto for Prem Singh Bajor, the wealthiest in the BJP with a kitty of Rs 62 crore.

If she wins, the “bean queen” will have an added reason for celebration — she will have closed in on Savitri Jindal, India’s richest MLA with assets of Rs 3,130 crore. The Haryana legislator is the mother of MP and industrialist Naveen Jindal.