Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Mar 12: Coming down heavily on use of money power especially the black money in the Lok Sabha elections, the Election Commission of India has asked the Income Tax (IT) Department and the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) to keep watch on movement of cash during the polls.
The Election Commission has written to the IT Department and FIU to sound their units across the country to keep watch on movement of unaccounted cash during the entire election period. The Commission, IT and FIU would be closely monitoring banking transactions of the political parties and the contesting candidates, flow of cash from the headquarters and local offices of the political parties and election offices set up by the contesting candidates.
The Election Commission has fixed maximum limit of Rs 70 lakh expenditure per candidate for the Lok Sabha elections.
Asserting that the cash ceiling imposed by the Election Commission of India was “more than enough’’, sources said the Election Commission was determined to prevent abuse of money power during the elections for which it has involved the Income Tax Department and the FIU to watch activities of candidates and political parties during the entire period of electioneering.
Apart from ITD and FIU, the Election Commission has also deployed Flying Squads, Static Surveillance Teams, Accounting Teams and Video Surveillance Teams at every Assembly segment of the Lok Sabha set to check distribution of cash or any other bribe among electorates.
The Election Commission has ordered that Shadow Observation Register should be maintained for the election expenditure of each candidate and after each inspection of the candidate’s accounts, the same should be scanned and uploaded on website of the Chief Electoral Officer for public viewing.
“Each candidate would open a separate bank account for election purpose and incur all election related expenses from that account through cheques,’’ sources said, adding this guideline of the Election Commission has been conveyed to all candidates.
Sources said under the Election Law it was mandatory for every contesting candidate to maintain and furnish separate and true account of his/her election expenditure. Under Representation of People Act, only the expenses on account of travel of leaders or star campaigners of any political party concerned (whose names were required to be communicated to the Commission and the CEO of the State/Union Territory within the prescribed period of seven days from the date of notification) would be exempted from being included in the account of expenses of a candidate. All other expenses would be included in the account of the candidates, they added.
The Commission has issued guidelines on the manner in which accounts are to be maintained and submitted by the candidates.
“It was incumbent upon the candidates to maintain daily account of expenditure and submit it for inspection to Designated Officer/Election Observer three times during the election campaign period,’’ sources said.
They disclosed that a separate election expenditure monitoring division has been set up in the Commission to deal with information on election expenses of the candidate and political parties. However, to assist the candidates, the Commission has prepared e-learning modules for maintaining their election expense accounts.
The Commission has directed all political parties sponsoring candidates for the elections to maintain day to day accounts for election campaign expenses and submit the accounts to the Commission within 90 days of Lok Sabha elections. The Commission would upload accounts on its website for public viewing.
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