Intensifying its election expenses monitoring activities, the Election Commission will now post expenditure details of individual candidates on the public domain after every inspection.
Revealing this to The Hindu in an interview, Manoj Kumar Meena, Chief Electoral Officer for Karnataka, said for the first time expenditure details would be available for the public to see and challenge during the elections itself. “Earlier, these details were available for the public after candidates submitted their expenditure statement to the commission within 30 days of completion of an election,” Mr. Meena said.
“The 42 election expenditure observers deployed for the Lok Sabha polls in Karnataka will inspect and tally the shadow registers maintained by the Returning Officers and the records maintained by the respective candidates. The inspections by the expenditure observers will be done three times after the filing of nominations till the day of the election. After every such inspection, the expenditure details will be scanned and posted on the District Election Officer’s (DEO) website and a link to this will be provided on the CEO Karnataka website for public viewing. If anyone finds that the candidate has provided false information, he/she can report the issue to the commission,” Mr. Meena said, asserting that such a violation by the candidate can even result in disqualification.
