Telangana Assembly polls: Big parties even paid Rs 6,000 for a vote in polls
Hyderabad: The maiden elections to the Telangana Legislative Assembly have been a money guzzler with an unprecedented growth in campaign expenditure.
It is an open secret that each of the candidates of the Congress, Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the Telugu Desam has spent more that Rs 20 crore for the campaign.
This is a flagrant violation of the Election Commission of India rules that allows Rs 28 lakh per candidate for campaign expenses. Candidates spend much than is officially allowed and what they declare they have spent. The Congress, TD and the TRS have spent huge amounts of money to buy votes and bribe voters with free liquor.
Privately party leaders admit that candidates have distributed money to voters prior to polling day, particularly in rural areas and slums of the Hyderabad city.
The amounts allegedly range from Rs 500 to Rs 3,000 for each vote, going up to Rs 6,000 for each vote in some pockets of the state.
In some parts of the state contestants have managed to buy votes community wise by bribing community leaders.
To compete with rivals, many contestants have sold their ancestral properties, sources in the TRS, Congress and the TD admit in private conversations.
Party leaders say that each of the contestants in the important constituencies of Nalgonda, Munugodu, Bhongir, Miryalguda, Huzurnagar, Kodangal, Medchal, Qutubullahpur, Sanathnagar, Kukatpally, Seri lingampally, Malkajgiri, Maheswaram, Uppal, LB Nagar, Alair, Rajendranagar, Nagarkurnool, Achampet, Kollapur, Kalwakurthy, and Khammam, have spent more than '20 crore each.
They say that even in the Chief Minister’s constituency and those of sitting ministers, campaign expenditure soared to crores of rupees. They said that the sops they distribute to voters cost three to four times more than what they spend on day-to-day activities.
In private talks, candidates have admitted that door-to-door campaigning and organising rallies, yatras, social media campaigns, and various kinds of media advertising required a lot of money and they could not remain within the prescribed limit of Rs 28 lakh.
Though over the past five years, the Election Commission has revamped efforts to monitor and control campaign expenditure of individual candidates though electronic surveillance and also by deploying observers, it has been unable to curb the role of money power or to bring the perpetrators to book. Though none of this speaks well of the democratic nature of elections, voters have tolerated it for years.
