EC fixes expenditure limit for poll candidates at Rs 28 lakh

Additional Chief Electoral Officer Dibyendu Sarkar said that the commission has fixed the upward limit of the expenditure for a candidate at Rs 28 lakh. The EC will monitor the expenditure of all the candidates contesting the election.

The EC will hold an all party meeting on Tuesday on the expenditure monitoring of the candidates from all the political parties. 

It was learnt that the commission will give a detailed outline to the political parties and their candidates on how to follow the guidelines laid down, by the Commission during their campaign. The EC will keep an eye on the entire expenses of how much a candidate spent for the election purpose. 

The all party meeting in connection with the expenditure monitoring will be held at the commission’s office at 12 pm on Tuesday.

The Deputy Election Commissioner, Sandeep Saxena will hold a video conference from Delhi with the Commission’s state team, District Election Officers (DEO) and senior police officers in the state to monitor the overall poll preparation.

“It will be a review meeting tomorrow (Tuesday) in which the Deputy Election Commissioner of India will hold a video conference. He will talk to the District Election officials on various election related issues. 

“The Commission has already given a detailed instruction on the security arrangements,” Sarkar said on Monday. The Commission hasgiven certain directives to put in place law and order situation before and during the poll. Around 200 companies of central forces have already been deployed at all the states. 

They were conducting route march in all the vulnerable areas across the state. According to a senior official of the Commission, around 2,000 spots have been identified as vulnerable where special security arrangements were being made to ensure free and fair election.

“The central forces have already started confidence building measure of the voters and area domination. 200 companies of paramilitary forces are already in the state. 

“More number of personnel will come to the state in the course of the elections,” Sarkar said.

All the district election officers (DEOs) and Superintendents of police have been asked to segregate the cases. If any particular case was found to have any links with the election process must be treated separately.

Sarkar said that they have not received any written complaint from any political parties against somebody. 

“We will take action if we receive any written complaint against any political party or leader. 

“There is a method of complaint for the political parties. Even they can use the applications and software introduced by the Commission to lodge a complaint regarding the poll related matters.  The commission will take of GIS system to run the application and software facilities.