EElections in India are no less than a festival and a huge amount of money is spent on it. The 2014 general elections were cited to be the costliest elections till date with a budget of 3500 Cr approximately, which was around 131 percent more than the 2009 elections. However, according to the Centre for Media Studies (CMS), a Delhi-based research organisation’s survey around Rs 35,000 crore was spent in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. Which suggest that almost Rs 30,000 crore- was unaccounted for.
According to the Election Commission of India, the limit for the expenditure of a Lok Sabha candidate is capped between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 70 lakh, depending on the state they are fighting from. In the assembly election, the ceiling ranges between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 28 lakh. This includes the money spent by the political party or the supporter towards the candidate. More than 60 percent of politicians at the state and national levels report receiving political party support, compared to fewer than 10 percent of respondents at the district level and lower.
An analysis of the expenses of 2014 Lok Sabha elections by ADR showed that as many as 176 MPs (33%) had declared election expenses that were less than 50 percent of the limit in their constituency. It seems quite ironical as most of the MPs have stated that the Rs 70 lakh limit is very low for contesting elections, indicating that the candidates may have not provided the correct data of the expenses incurred. The late BJP minister Gopinath Munde admitted to having spent around Rs 8 crore in the 2009 Lok Sabha poll. According to another Congressman, a candidate requires at least Rs 10 crore to win in big urban constituencies and Rs 5 crore for the rural ones. According to an MLA in Arunachal Pradesh, they spent Rs 10 crore in an assembly constituency, which is quite ironical as according to reports submitted by the candidates to EC, Arunachal Pradesh just spent Rs 7 lakh on each, on an average
This certainly raises the question: From where do the political parties receive the funding and how is it not accounted for in the reports presented by the candidates to the EC?
The Election Commission (EC) imposes limits on the campaign expenditure incurred by a candidate, not the political parties, and also not on the individual donations. The individual donors account for the highest share of the total funds received by the candidates- 32 percent for Lok Sabha MPs and 29 percent for the MLAs. The 2017 Finance Act lifted the cap on corporate contributions from 7.5 percent of the net profit of a company’s past three financial years and removed the obligation to report such contribution’s in the company’s profit and loss account. The electoral bonds, introduced this year, allow a group of people or corporations to buy these bonds from the designated SBI branch within the first 10 days of every month. The bonds, with the validity of 15 days, are issued in the multiples of Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh and Rs 10 crore. These bonds cannot be bought in cash, and the buyer must submit the KYC. The parties can encash these bonds in the designated SBI accounts and neither of them needs to reveal the details regarding the same.
The poll expenses for the upcoming MP assembly elections are expecting a 40 percent rise, at least, in each constituency. While the EC limit remains at the threshold of Rs 70 lakh it will be interesting to see how are the parties able to curb the expenses occurred in the report that is to be presented after the elections.
Graph: Expenses incurred in last 3 Lok Sabha Elections in crores
