Election Commission makes seizures worth ₹558.64 crore from poll-bound states

Maharashtra and Jharkhand saw seizures worth ₹281.93 crore and ₹158.7 crore, respectively, marking a 3.5-time increase compared to the 2019 assembly elections

The Election Commission of India seized cash, freebies, liquor, drugs and precious metals worth ₹558.64 crore in Maharashtra, Jharkhand and bypoll-bound assembly and parliamentary constituencies across 14 states between October 15 and November 6, the poll body said on Wednesday.

The poll body’s Election Seizure Management System (ESMS) has been used for real time reporting of interceptions and seizure.

Maharashtra and Jharkhand saw seizures worth ₹281.93 crore and ₹158.7 crore, respectively, marking a 3.5-time increase compared to the 2019 assembly elections. In 2019, Maharashtra saw seizures worth ₹103.61 crore while Jharkhand saw seizures worth ₹18.76 crore.

Of the ₹558.64 crore seized, ₹241.02 crore, or 40% of the value of goods seized, were meant to be used as freebies. Precious metal worth ₹104.18 crore accounted for 18.6% of the total seizures followed by cash worth ₹92.47 crore (16.6%).

In Maharashtra, precious metal accounted for 32% ( ₹90.53 crore) of the seizures followed by cash worth ₹73.11 crore (25.9%) and freebies worth ₹42.55 crore (15.1%).

In Jharkhand, freebies accounted for 80.6% ( ₹127.88 crore) of the seizures followed by cash worth ₹10.46 crore (6.6%) and drugs worth ₹8.99 crore (5.7%).

The poll body’s Election Seizure Management System (ESMS) has been used for real time reporting of interceptions and seizures. The 91 constituencies of Maharashtra and 19 constituencies of Jharkhand have been marked as Expenditure Sensitive Constituencies “for more focussed vigil”, the ECI said in a statement.

The ECI approved a total of 18,045 campaign related requests through its Suvidha web portal and mobile app with 8,546 from Maharashtra and 6,317 from Jharkhand.

The ECI said that it had resolved 9,681 complaints related to election code violations reported on the cVigil app since the elections were declared. 98% of all complaints had been disposed with over 83% of them being resolved in under 100 minutes, the poll body said.