NEW DELHI: A 62-year-old Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) leader was shot dead by unidentified assailants inside his south Delhi farmhouse on Tuesday morning.

The deceased, Deepak Bhardwaj , had contested 2009 Lok Sabha elections from west Delhi constituency and was termed the richest contestant in the 15th LS elections with assets around Rs 614 crore. He lived with his family at Lajwanti Garden in west Delhi.

The incident took place around 9.15am when two men in a Skoda car arrived at the Nitish Kunj farmhouse located near NH8. Witnesses said the assailants spoke to Bhardwaj for a few minutes and then opened fire probably with a 9mm pistol. A guard was also allegedly shot at when he tried to intervene.

The police received a PCR call at 9.28am about the incident and teams rushed to the spot.

Bhardwaj had sustained three bullets and was rushed to the nearby RR hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.

The body has been sent for postmortem which will be conducted in presence of his family members.

The cops suspect a personal enmity behind the firing and are questioning the family members and relatives. The call detail records and the CCTV footages are being analyzed.

Six teams have been formed to catch the shooters and crime branch has also been roped in.

Bhardwaj owned businesses in real estate, hotels and education. He ran a school in Dwarka and claimed plans to open two more schools, one in Dwarka and the other in Dhansa, both in west Delhi.

Bhardwaj also owned a township project in Haridwar and a hotel on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway.

Last year in November, liquor baron Ponty Chadha was killed over a family feud about a property in a farmhouse in close proximity to this one. Chadha also had a large business empire and was closely connected to the BSP.