Thane candidates’ expenses under EC scanner

Declared election expenses of some of the key candidates for the Assembly elections are under scanner as the Election Commission (EC) has claimed that these expenses

Declared election expenses of some of the key candidates for the Assembly elections are under scanner as the Election Commission (EC) has claimed that these expenses are either higher or lower than its calculations.

HT Image

The commission has uploaded election expenditure incurred till October 12 of all key candidates on their website.

As per EC’s guidelines, candidates cannot spend more than ₹28 lakh this election. The election expenditure revealed that candidates have spent mostly on food, stationery, songs, social media handling, publishing on pamphlets, renting vehicles, microphones, amplifiers, LED and advertisements.

The commission maintains a shadow register to enter the expenses of each candidate. The entry of the register should match with the election expenses submitted by the candidates.

An officer from Thane district election commission said, “Some of the election expenses of the candidates do not match with the expenses calculated by us. NCP candidate Jitendra Awhad has shown his election expenditure of ₹7.45 lakh while as per our calculation the expenditure should be ₹9.54 lakh. BJP candidate Sanjay Kelkar and MNS candidate Avinash Jadhav’s expenditure was more than our calculation.”

Kelkar had shown expenditure of ₹3.87 lakh while the election commission calculated it as ₹1.64 lakh. Jadhav had shown expenditure of ₹3.68 lakh while the election commission calculated it merely as ₹77,513.

The commission has its own surveillance teams that follow every move of the candidates. They collect video footage of the rallies to ensure that there are no hidden expenses nor are the candidates showing exorbitant rates for minor items.

“In case a candidate has shown fewer expenses than our calculations, we serve them a notice and ask them to recall the expenditure. They are given a chance to give an explanation and can correct the figure when they revise this expenditure. In case their expenses are higher than our calculations, we consider their expenditure as valid,” added the officer.

In Thane municipal limits, Shiv Sena candidate Eknath Shinde has declared the highest expenditure at ₹8.64 lakh followed by NCP’s Jitendra Awhad at ₹7.45 lakh.

An MNS functionary, who did not wished to named, said, “Our campaigning is mostly through social media as we want to target the young generation. Thus, our actual expenses are not much. The expenses are only limited to rallies and road shows. We are not rich enough to give advertisements or make video songs.”