The expenditure affidavit submitted by the DMK to the Election Commission for the recently held Lok Sabha Elections has raised questions regarding the amount of money spent by communist parties in its alliance. The Dravidian major has given the CPI and CPI (M) Rs 15 crore and Rs 10 crore respectively and included it in election expenses, according to records.
In its expenditure affidavit, DMK has stated that Rs 40 crore was given to alliance partners – CPI and Kongu Nadu Democratic Party received Rs.15 crore each while CPI(M) received Rs.10 crore.
The DMK’s total expenditure in the self-declared affidavit is Rs 79.26 crore. The party won all the 21 seats it contested in. The communist parties that got two seats each in the alliance also emerged victorious. But considering that each party contested only from two seats, isn’t an expenditure of Rs 10 crore or more a violation of the Election Commission’s rules?
“No, it is not,” says CPI(M) Tamil Nadu state secretary K Balakrishnan. “We have in fact spent over Rs 10 crore in Tamil Nadu for the election because we were not just campaigning in our seats but in all 39 constituencies,” he said.
According to Election Commission website, the CPI (M) has submitted that its total expenditure for the election across India is close to Rs 7.3 crore. Polit Bureau member G Ramakrishnan told TNM that this was the expenditure of the central leadership and Tamil Nadu has submitted a separate annexure. “We have spent in all the constituencies to mobilise our cadre. It has been accounted for in our expenditure statement. There is nothing unusual in this,” he said.
The CPI meanwhile said that the Rs 15 crore they received was not in connection to the elections at all.
“It is common within political parties to give and take money. This has nothing to do with elections. We took it for other needs and will give it back,” claims CPI state secretary R Mutharasan.
The DMK too went on the defensive and refused to elaborate on the figure. Sources within the party said that it was an exchange of money only concerning the DMK and its allies.
The AIADMK meanwhile has pegged its total expenditure at Rs. 20,03,70,541
Source: The News Minute