TDP’s Diwakar Reddy says he spent ₹50 crore in recent polls

Reddy said elections have become a costly proposition while speaking to reporters in Amaravati where he attended a meeting conducted by TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu.

Senior Telugu Desam Party leader JC Diwakar Reddy said on Monday he had spent nearly ₹50 crore during the Lok Sabha election in Andhra Pradesh, which was held on April 11, as he blamed voters for demanding money to cast their ballots.

Reddy admitted he alone had to spend around ₹50 crore for the victory of the party in his constituency. (File Photo)

Under the norms laid out by the Election Commission, the maximum expenditure a candidate contesting the Lok Sabha elections can incur is ₹70 lakh and for those fighting the assembly elections ₹28 lakh is the limit. The candidates have to submit the expenditure details to the poll body after the election process is completed.

Reddy said elections have become a costly proposition while speaking to reporters in Amaravati where he attended a meeting conducted by TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu. It was held to review the party’s performance in the recent election.

“According to my estimate, all the political parties together had spent over ₹10,000 crore in the just concluded elections to the Lok Sabha and assembly in the state. On an average, each candidate spent anywhere around ₹25 crore in each parliamentary constituency,” he said.

Reddy admitted he alone had to spend around ₹50 crore for the victory of the party in his constituency. “I am afraid how many crores we may have to spend in the next elections,” he said.

Reddy, who represents the Anantapur parliamentary constituency, did not contest the parliamentary elections this time and in his place, his son JC Pawan fought the battle from seat on a TDP ticket.

The TDP MP blamed voters for the abnormal escalation in election expenditure made by the contesting candidates.

“The voters are openly demanding money for casting their vote. They are not accepting less than ₹2,000 per vote. Even agricultural labourers and daily wage workers are demanding ₹5,000 per vote,” he said.

He also said that there was a need to change the entire system of conducting elections by bringing in comprehensive political reforms to curtail the expenditure.

In June 2016, Andhra Pradesh assembly speaker Kodela Sivaprasada Rao also landed in a similar controversy.

Rao, a six-time MLA, told a television news channel that when he had contested the elections for the first time in 1983, he had spent ₹30,000, but in 2014, he had to spend ₹11.50 crore to win the assembly election from the Sattenapalli constituency.

Interestingly, Rao has said in his affidavit to the EC that he had spent only ₹15.69 lakh in the assembly elections. YSRC spokesperson Ambati Rambabu had demanded that the poll body should initiate action against Rao.