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Cheapest poll for Congress in Andhra Pradesh

Congress has not bothered to fund any of its candidates in Seemandhra

Hyderabad: For the Congress party, the ongoing general election in the united Andhra Pradesh is probably the cheapest in its history in recent times. While the party has given each candidate in Telangana Rs 1 crore to Rs1.50 crore for campaign expenses, it has not bothered to fund any of its candidates in Seemandhra. After some urging from APCC leaders, Rs 20 lakh was given to select candidates.

The Election Commission has increased the expenditure limit from Rs 40 lakh to Rs 70 lakh for each Lok Sabha candidate and from Rs 16 lakh to Rs 28 lakh for each Assembly candidate.

In the 2009 general election, each Congress candidate was given Rs 1.5 crore to Rs 2 crore to fund his or her campaign. Some candidates were given additional monies if they merited it.

Generally, the party’s Central leadership releases some funds to the candidate and if the same party is in power in the state, the state unit of the party too will provide some funds. But in 2009, Congress candidates were funded entirely by the state party.

According to a rough estimate, each Assembly candidate will spend around Rs 5 crore and each Lok Sabha candidate will spend Rs 10 crore during the elections. If the rivals are financially sound, candidates will have to spend even more. In the last election, one Assembly candidate spent Rs 15 crore on his campaign.

In the present election, the Congress has high hopes of winning in Telangana and so helped the party candidates financially. But in Seemandhra, where the party has no hopes of winning, the party has not funded their candidates and many candidates are spending their own money.

Congress leaders in both Telangana and Seemandhra believe it was a mistake to declare President’s rule in the state when elections were imminent. The reasoning is that if the party was in power, it would have got some funds automatically, to be distributed to the candidates. Because the party was not in power in the state, the burden of funding the candidates fell on the high command.

It was expected that for the 294 Assembly and 42 Lok Sabha seats, the Congress’s central leadership would spend around Rs 500 crore, but in fact it has whittled this down to around Rs 250 crore.

( Source : dc )
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