Bengaluru: The Congress party, after BJP candidate for the Raja Rajeshwari (RR) Nagar by-elections distributed television 34,000 set top boxes to voters in the constituency, has accused Munirathna Naidu of spending more money than permitted by the Election Commission on campaign expenses.
It can be noted that the EC has set a limit of Rs 30.8 lakhs on campaign expenditure.
Alleging that he was airing ads regarding his candidature on TVs using the distributed set yop boxes, the Congress had filed against the BJPO cadidate with the EC, adding that the total amount spent on set top boxes would cross Rs 5 crores, even if each of them cost Rs 1,000.
Munirathna Naidu has, however, denied these claims, stating that the set top boxes were ‘sold’ to the people after the Union government granted him permission for the same. He also added that the set top boxes were distributed even before the election campaign officially began.
According to a report by TNM, Muniratna responded to the claims saying, “Reliance is doing it, Tata Sky is doing it, Jio is doing it, why should I not? We have done this legally and with the permission of the Union government.”
Meanwhile, the Election Commission officials are are in the process of calculating the money spent by Munirathna on the by-poll campaigning. Additionally, Bengaluru district election officer Manjunath Prasad explained that even if Muniratna had sold the set top boxes, the ads, which were run through them during the 20-day campaign period, are still counted as election expenses.
Usually, each ad would cost Re 1 or Rs 5 per day. If the cost of each ad is assumed to be Re 1 per day, the expense would come up to Rs 6.8 lakh and Rs 34 lakhs if it is Rs 5 per ad, which is above the limit set by the EC on campagin expenditure,” he said, adding that they are looking into this matter, as well as the other expenses incurred for the campaign.
Meanwhile, the Congress party has informed that they will wait for the elections to conclude to file a fresh complaint in this regard, as they are looking into allegations of discrepancies.
