The Election Commission of India (ECI) on January 12 submitted before the Supreme Court in an affidavit that it has considerably succeeded to control excessive poll spending by political parties.
The ECI supported its claim by citing the election expenditure monitoring mechanism that had taken place since the 2010 Bihar Assembly elections. The ECI also emphasised that the regulatory body, being “seriously concerned” about the rapidly growing poll expenditure by political parties, had already presented a “robust mechanism” to keep the election expenditure within the statutory perimeters as prescribed by Rule 90 of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961.
Rule 90 (Maximum Election Expenses) of the said rules relates to the total of the expenditure of which account is to be kept and which is incurred or authorised in connection with an election in a State or Union territory.
The previous year in September, the Supreme Court sought the response of the ECI on a public interest litigation petition seeking directions to curb excessive poll spending by political parties and candidates in Prabhakar Deshpande vs. Chief Election Commissioner of India and Ors.
The petition was filed by Prabhakar Deshpande seeking instructions to come up with a comprehensive plan to limit excessive poll spending by political parties and candidates and measures against defaulting candidates and parties. It is to this petition the Poll Body has given its response. This affidavit was filed by Vijay Kumar Pandey, Director (Law), Election Commission of India. Additionally, the Supreme court was requested to mandate the commission to “earnestly” scrutinise election expenditures to “bring credibility and democratic reforms”. The commission submitted that the petition was not maintainable and opposed the petitioner’s appeal to devise a comprehensive plan of action to deal with the menace of escalating money power in elections. “The petitioner has not taken into account that such a mechanism already exists,” the affidavit highlighted. It added that an Ex-Chief Election Commissioner and the author of the foreword of a report on which the petitioner has built his argument has acknowledged that the main cause for more money being seized in the present day is the “increased vigilance and efforts” by the ECI.
“ECI is seriously concerned about the increasing use of money power in elections. To curb this menace, ECI has effectively and successfully enforced the Election Expenditure Monitoring Mechanism in the elections since the Bihar Assembly polls in 2010. To keep the expenditure of parties within the statutory limit, ECI has introduced a robust mechanism for expenditure monitoring during elections.” The regulatory body provided further details on what the mechanism includes. “This includes deployment of expenditure observers, video surveillance teams, video viewing teams, accounting teams, complaint monitoring and call centre, media certification and monitoring committee, flying squads and static surveillance teams”, said the affidavit sworn by Vijay Kumar Pandey. It also noted that the services of central and state law enforcement agencies are regularly utilised, and their teams are deployed to poll-bound states to oversee election spending. All candidates are expected to open a separate bank account for the primary purpose of election spending and keep their own register in which daily accounts are methodically maintained.
