From ₹84 in 2018 to ₹800 now, retired IAS officer and second-time Independent candidate from Nalgonda Assembly constituency Cholleti Prabhakar’s total election expenditure has seen a near 10-times spike.
“I only purchased two flexis and got 2,000 pamphlets printed. My batchmate and IAS officer T. Radha sponsored the Bolero vehicle for the campaigning and a teacher from Kavali Degree College, Nellore, who learnt about my work contributed ₹10,000 for the election deposit,” he says.
For the 67-year-old from Gollagudi in Nalgonda town, it is a battle against ‘election as a business enterprise’, in which leaders would splurge crores of rupees to contest and win.
