Election watchdog ADR today said the BJP is yet to submit its expenditure statement for 2013 Delhi Assembly polls to the Election Commission.
The Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) also noted that Congress had incurred an expenditure of over Rs 172 lakh during the elections out of which Rs 150 lakh was spent on media advertisements.
"The total funds collected by national parties during (2013) Assembly elections was Rs 94.72 lakh and total expenditure incurred by them was Rs 232 lakh. BJP, however, has not submitted its statement till date," Jagdeep Chhokar, founder member of ADR, told a press conference here.
"The AAP was an unrecognised party at the time of 2013 polls and thus is not required to submit an account of its election expenditure. However, in a letter to the ECI dated February 22, 2014, AAP had requested for a grace period of 15 days but the ECI hasn't received the statement yet," he said.
According to the ADR report, "Total fund collected by the Congress for the 2013 polls amounted to Rs 80.06 lakh while the expenditure incurred was Rs 172.3 lakh. BSP had declared zero collection in its statement while the expenditure was Rs 57 lakh."
Political parties are required to submit their statement of election expenditure to the Election Commission within 75 days of completion of Assembly elections, ADR said.
The expenditure statement contains details of the total amount received as funds in the form of cash, cheques and demand drafts and the total amount spent under various heads including publicity, travel expenses, expenditure towards candidates and other expenses.
The parties submit these statements providing information of funds collected and spent between announcement and completion of elections. The period could be between three weeks to three months based on the notification issued by the Election Commission.
"Of the 12 regional parties which contested in the Delhi Assembly elections, only LJP, RLD, SAD and Shiv Sena have submitted their election expenditure statements to the EC. It is to be noted that only Shiv Sena and SAD collected funds amounting to Rs 75.12 lakhs while none of other regional parties collected funds during the 2013 polls," Chhokar said.
According to the statements submitted, the parties' preferred mode of expenditure was cheque/DD, he said, adding, around 94 per cent expenditure of the parties was on publicity.
The ADR report which is an analysis of the affidavits of 673 candidates who are in fray for the February 7 Delhi polls, highlighted that as many as 114 candidates have criminal cases against them and 19 out of 70 seats were 'red alert' constituencies which had at least three tainted candidates each.
It also observed that 230 candidates in the poll fray are crorepatis with 62 of them having declared assets worth more than Rs 10 crore.
The highest number of 59 crorepatis have been fielded by Congress, followed by BJP and AAP which have nominated 50 and 44 crorepatis respectively.
"At least 261 candidates have not declared their income tax details and 6 candidates with assets more than Rs 1 crore have not declared PAN details," Chhokar said.
"While the highest number of XIIth pass candidates have been fielded by the parties this time, 26 illiterates are also in the poll fray," he added.
While 113 candidates are graduates, only 11 have a doctorate degree.
There are 66 women candidates contesting this year, while in the last polls 71 out of 810 candidates in the fray were women, ADR said.
