PUDUCHERRY ASSEMBLY ELECTION EXPENDITURE ANALYSIS SHOWS MOST MLA'S TAPPED SOURCES OUTSIDE PARTY TO FUND THEIR CAMPAIGN
Most of the MLAs elected to the 15th Legislative Assembly had tapped sources outside the party organisation to finance their campaigns, an evaluation by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR)-Puducherry Election Watch has proven.
The ADR, which scrutinised the expenditure affidavits filed by the applicants as mandated by law, found that of the entire funds received by MLAs, 14% price range have been raised from political parties, 15% have been raised by MLAs themselves and 71% price range have been raised from different sources.
Out of the 30 MLAs, 6 (20%) MLAs declared that they've acquired price range from political events and 24 (80%) MLAs declared that they've not received any funds from political parties. All 30 (100%) MLAs have declared that they've received funds from any person/ company/ firm/ associations/ body of persons etc as loan, gift or donation etc.
While 17 (57%) MLAs have declared that they've used their personal funds for their election marketing campaign and 13(43%) MLAs have declared that they've now no longer used any in their personal price range for his or her election marketing campaign.
In a party-wise breakdown, on an average an MLA from DMK raised 74.91% and on an average an MLA from BJP raised 71.15% of his/her election cost funds from the political party. On an average a MLA from INC raised 68.12% of his/her election expense funds from any person/company/firm/associations/body of persons etc. as loan, gift or donation. Similarly, an MLA from All India N.R. Congress raised on a mean 12.70% in their rate price range from any person/ company/ firm/ associations/ frame of people etc. as loan, gift or donation.
The ADR's celebration-sensible assessment of common expenditure of the 30 MLAs who made it to has proven that the Congress' best prevailing applicants crowned the spending charts in the April 6 elections that the celebration went on to lose badly.
The analysis confirmed that the common election expenditure for the Congress' MLAs turned into Rs. 9.52 lakh (43 per cent of the Rs. 22 lakh expenditure cap).
In evaluation, the BJP averaged charges of Rs. 9.16 lakh (41.7 in keeping with cent) for its six prevailing MLAs at the same time as the common spending for 10 MLAs from All India N.R. Congress was Rs 6.20 lakhs (28.2% of the rate restriction).
For six MLAs from DMK, the average election expenditure was Rs 7.08 lakhs (32.2% of the expense limit while the six Independent MLAs spent Rs. 6.76 lakhs (30.7% of the expense restriction).
Among the top character spenders were AINRC's P.R.N. Thirumurugan (Karaikal North) who expended Rs. 15,47,783 (70% of the cap), BJP's P.M.L. Kalyanasundaram (Kalapet) with an expenditure of Rs. 14,49,833 (66%) and Gollapalli Srinivas Ashok (Independent-Yanam) who spent Rs. 13,80,615 (63%).
Among party candidates, DMK's Annibal Kennedy (Ouppalam) was the most spartan with an expenditure of Rs. 3,08,984 (14 per cent of the ceiling) while those who spent lesser were Independents M. Sivasankar (Ozhukkarai) with an expenditure of Rs. 2,17,632 (10% of limit), J. Prakash Kumar (Muthialpet) with Rs. 2,46,716 (11% of upper limit).
The ADR exercise involved scrutiny of the expenditure statements submitted after the April 6 Assembly Elections by the 30 MLAs under Section 78 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, that requires every contesting candidate to lodge a real copy of his election expenses within 30 days from the date of declaration of result of election, with the District Election Officer in all States and Union Territories.
These election rate files consist of information of charges on public conferences and processions, campaigning thru digital and print media, rate on marketing campaign workers, rate on automobiles used and rate on marketing campaign materials.
The evaluation confirmed that the 30 MLAs who contested the April 6 Assembly elections spent a mean of Rs. 7.30 lakh in the direction of campaigning costs. The common amount of cash spent with the aid of using the MLAs withinside the elections quantities to an insignificant 33% of the expenditure cap of Rs. 22 lakh.
The ADR findings confirmed that 25 (83%) MLAs have declared election charges much less than 50% of the rate restriction of their constituency.
