Contrary to Badal’s assertion, parties tell EC they spend less

Political parties are feeling the heat of allegedly “inflated rates” for services and items as fixed by the Election Commission, on the basis of which they have been asked to add expenses to their account books. On Monday, parties joined hands to object to these rates at a meeting held by Jalandhar district electoral officer and EC observers.

Incidentally, these objections were raised at a time when SAD — in its reply submitted to a notice issued by Jalandhar ARO regarding chief minister Parkash Singh Badal’s remarks that “crores were spent on elections but they show less,” — claimed that its candidates were not even able to spend up to the permissible limits.

SAD representatives pointed out that the charges fixed by the authorities for some items were much higher than the market rate and when purchased in bulk, the cost came down further. Jalandhar district chief of Akali Dal, G S Channi, raised most of those issues and was supported by representatives of parties, including Congress and independent candidates. Channi said “inflated rates” were swelling their expense details while actually they were spending less.

The party representatives pointed out that the rate for flex boards was fixed at Rs 35 per square feet while in the market, these were available at Rs 15 per sq ft or even less. For cloth banners, EC authorities had fixed Rs 110 per sq ft while actual cost of a normal banner was less than that. For big hoardings (on unipoles), the rate was Rs 100 per sq ft per day, but the parties said that this is much more than the actual expenses.

For posters, the official rate was Rs 10 per sq feet, but in the market, these could be had for Rs 3 per sq ft, the representatives pointed out. For microphone system, representatives of parties said that the official rate was Rs 2,500 per day, but in the open market, they could get it at Rs 1,000-1,200 per day.

Jalandhar DEO Varun Roojam told representatives of political parties that he would take up the issue with Punjab CEO, if they gave their objections in writing.