Poll expenses: State BJP under scanner

Kolkata: The state BJP is facing tremendous pressure from the central leadership after it was asked by the former to furnish details of the money spent during the recently concluded Assembly elections.

Party insiders said that only in three Assembly constituencies, namely, Bhowanipur, Behala East and Behala West the central BJP had given Rs 4 crore to ensure victory of the candidates.

However, the central BJP has taken the matter very seriously after the candidates lost the election. The candidates were Rudranil Ghosh in Bhowanipur, Payel Sarkar in Behala east and Srabanti Chattopadhyay in Behala west.

The central leadership alleged that the money which had been given to the state leadership had not been spent properly and they wanted that the accounts should be submitted to them containing minute details.

A senior state leader preferring anonymity said the state leaders of these three constituencies had been given Rs 30 lakhs each. In addition to this another Rs 14 lakhs had been spent on each road show where Amit Shah, JP Nadda, party's national president and Mithun Chakraborty took part. Another Rs 10 lakhs had been spent on the workers' conference. There are 1,268 polling booths in these three constituencies and Rs 4,000 was given to each party workers manning the booths on the day of election.

The central BJP had given Rs 50 lakhs as pocket money to be distributed among the workers.

The central leaders working in these constituencies had been put up in good hotels and around Rs 2 lakhs had been spent every month.

Two marriage houses were hired in Behala East and West to set up party offices at Rs 60,000 per house per

month.

The party have Rs 5 lakhs to make party flags which were supposed to have been put in the constituencies.

The state leaders said they had asked the candidates to give details of expenditure at the earliest.