Legislators declare election expenses well below limits

Even as the April-May assembly elections in five states saw a record amount of cash seized, the newly elected legislators have declared their expenses as being well below the limits set by the Election Commission, an electoral and political research organisation says.

The new legislators in the Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala assemblies have shown their election expenses as only between Rs 3.12 lakhs and Rs 9.39 lakhs (39 per cent to 59 per cent of the limit) in their declarations to the Election Commission.

According to the information accessed from the Election Commission by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), a non-profit organisation, only 32 legislators out of 746 analysed have declared that the money spent by them was more than 80 per cent of the limit.

The Election Commission had set an expense limit of Rs.16 lakh for Tamil Nadu, Assam, West Bengal and Kerala and Rs.9 lakh for Puducherry.

"While no MLA (member of legislative assembly) has declared they spent more than the limit, 403 MLAs have in fact declared expenses less than 50 per cent of the limit set by the Election Commission," an ADR analysis said.

On the other hand, the cash seized during these elections was close to Rs.75 crore. Nearly 80 per cent of this, or a whopping Rs.60 crore, was from Tamil Nadu alone.

According to figures provided by the Election Commission, nearly Rs.8.35 crore was seized from West Bengal, Rs.5.20 crore from Assam and Rs.62 lakh from Kerala.

However, the average expenditure declared by the candidates is way below what the seizure of cash may suggest.

The average expenditure declared by the legislators in Assam is Rs.9.01 lakh (126 MLAs), Kerala - Rs.9.39 lakhs (139 MLAs), West Bengal - Rs.7.06 lakh (217 MLAs), Tamil Nadu - Rs.7.12 lakh (234 MLAs) and Puducherry - Rs.3.12 lakh (39 MLAs).

"This means that MLAs are claiming that the money spent by them in the recent elections on an average was way below the expense limit. It is 56 per cent for Assam, 50 per cent for Kerala, 39 per cent for Puducherry, 44 per cent for West Bengal and only 45 per cent for Tamil Nadu," the ADR analysis said.

"While 76 MLAs declared that they did not spend any money on public meetings, processions etc, 183 MLAs declared that they have not spent any money on campaign workers," Anil Bairwal, national coordinator of ADR, told IANS.

"Even though there is a huge discussion on paid news, 376 of them have declared that they did not spend any money on campaign through the electronic or print media," he said.

"While most vehicles are found to be rented during elections and candidates travel in large cavalcades, eight MLAs have declared that they did not spend any money on vehicles. Some 10 MLAs also declared that they did not spend any money on any type of campaign material," Bairwal said.

The national coordinator added that petitions on providing wrong information on expenses could be filed in the respective high courts within 45 days of the election results being declared. Since the results were announced May 13, the 45-day period ended Monday.

"According to Representation of the People Act, giving wrong details of election expenditure is a corrupt practice and can be basis for an election petition which can be filed within 45 days in the high court," Bairwal said.

He, however, added that the time period of 45 days was insufficient for filing a petition as the legislators had to file their details within 30 days, leaving only 15 days for this to be reviewed.

"The Election Commission has sent a proposal to the government to reduce the time for MLAs to file the details to 15 days. The proposal is pending," Bairwal added