The Forum for Good Governance (FGG) has urged the Election Commission of India (ECI) to ensure that clear-cut guidelines are issued to for money seized during elections. The money seized should be deposited in the court and an FIR should also be filed, making the contesting candidate an accused, it said in a communication sent to the ECI.
Forum secretary M. Padmanabha Reddy informed that there are no uniform procedures currently to deal with cases of distribution of money to the voters in the elections. Giving a specific example of the recently held bypoll to the Huzurabad assembly constituency which was won by the BJP, he said analysis by the FGG had shown that there were 94 cases where money was seized to the tune of ₹380 lakh.
Yet, only in five of the 94 cases, an FIR was issued and in 89 others, no case was registered and money was returned to the person from whom it was seized. Even among the five cases, two were booked under the Gaming Act, leaving three cases only booked under Section 171 E (punishment for bribery) with amount involved being ₹18 lakh.
Mr Reddy said no case was made out against the contesting candidates and the Telangana chief electoral officer’s statement that ₹3.5 crore was seized during the elections was far from the truth. He charged that about ₹6,000 was distributed for each vote and there were protests by those who did not receive the money or got less, this being a sad reflection of the way in which elections are being conducted, he said.
The secretary claimed that roughly ₹300 crore was distributed by all the political parties for purchasing voters. However, inaction by the election officials in the field to prevent the distribution of money has put the entire election process in a ‘bad light’, the communication added.
