Neeraj Rohmetra
Jammu, Nov 5: In yet another blow to the efforts of the Election Commission of India (ECI) to bring transparency and accountability over the use of ‘money power ‘during the electoral exercise in the State, the recognised political parties have even failed to submit the mandatory details of the Election expenditure of the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls.
Reliable sources told EXCELSIOR even as national parties including Indian National Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party had failed to file their Statement of Election expenditure for the Lok Sabha, 2014 polls, their regional counterparts have ‘deliberately’ hidden information about the expenses incurred by their candidates.
“Recognised regional parties, who had failed to divulge expenditure details included National Conference (NC), People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Jammu and Kashmir National Panther’s Party (JKNPP). The office bearers of these parties have provided insufficient details and left several columns blank in the format provided by the ECI to submit expenses details”, sources pointed out.
“Interestingly, though the due date for filing of Expenditure Statement was 26th August, the Election Commission has not taken any action against the defaulting parties. The failure of national and regional parties to submit the required Expenditure details to the ECI has put serious question mark on the authority of the Constitutional body”, sources asserted.
Documents in possession of EXCELSIOR reveal, “National Conference, which has 28 MLAs has filed its returns for the Lok Sabha, 2014 polls on August 14, but the party is silent over the information about the total expenditure incurred in the electoral exercise. PDP, which has 21 MLAs in the present Assembly had filed its statement of election expenditure on August 4, but has intentionally not revealed many items including the Gross total expenditure”.
“Panthers party, which has 4 MLAs and is the third recognised party of the State has chosen not to file its Election Expenditure return”, sources remarked.
Sources added, “worst is the attitude of national parties like Congress, which has 17 MLAs and BJP that has 11 MLAs as none of them has so far filed the Expenditure details till November 3”, adding, “if this is the attitude of recognised parties, what to ask about other non-recognised parties”.
As per the directions of the Supreme Court in the case of Common Cause Vs Union of India & Others (MR 1996 SC 3081), the Election Commission has prescribed a pro-forma, in which the political parties are required to submit, for the Commission’s scrutiny, the statement of their election expenditure relating to each election to Lok Sabha/ State Legislative Assembly. The Statement of election Expenditure has to be filed by all political parties in a hard copy and in soft form on a CD.
The political parties have to provide details of the Election Expenditure incurred/authorized by State Unit of the political party or by the State Party headquarters including all district level and local unit of the State.
Legal consultants, when contacted opined, “under Article 324 of the Constitution, the ECI issues certain guidelines to political parties and candidates, aimed to curb the abuse of money power during elections. The objective is to provide level playing field to all and prevent forces aimed at vitiating the purity of elections”.
As far as on-going Assembly elections are concerned, as per the existing rules, Section 85 (1) of the Jammu & Kashmir Representation of the People Act, 1957 makes it mandatory for every candidate to the Jammu & Kashmir State Legislative Assembly to keep a separate and correct account of all expenditure incurred or authorized by him or by his election agent, between the date of publication of the notification calling the election and the date of declaration of the result thereof, both dates inclusive.
According to Section 86 of the Jammu & Kashmir Representation of the People Act, 1957, every contesting candidate is required to lodge a true copy of the account of his election expenses with the District Election Officer (DEO) within 30 days of the declaration of the result of the election. Failure to lodge the account of election expenses within the time and in the manner required by law without good reason or justification may result in disqualification of the candidate concerned by
the Election Commission of India under Section 24E of the Jammu & Kashmir Representation of the People Act, 1957.
Follow our WhatsApp channel