New Delhi: The Election Commission of India today reported a significant and exponential increase in seizures in the five poll-going states of Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Telangana.
Seizures over Rs 1760 crores have so far been reported in these states since the announcement of the elections, which is more than 7 times (Rs. 239.15 crore) the seizures made in previous Assembly Elections in these States in 2018.
It may be recalled that seizures of over Rs 1400 crores were done in the past six state assembly elections held in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Tripura and Karnataka which is 11 times the previous assembly elections in these states.
As per reports received from poll-going States, the following is the seizure after the announcement of elections and as of November 20, 2023:
The monitoring process started with visits of teams headed by Sr. DECs/DECs to poll-going States between June and August, wherein, interaction with enforcement agencies and districts was conducted to sensitize the participating field forces about the importance of expenditure monitoring and also to review their inputs for preparation for elections. Subsequently, the Commission during the review in these states, emphasised a zero-tolerance approach to checking the flow of inducements to influence voters and multi-level actions by enforcement agencies which is reflected in the increase in seizures in these states. From the day of these visits, Enforcement Agencies stepped up their vigil in their respective domains and by the time elections were announced, taken together, they had already reported seizures of Rs 576.20 crores.
– global bihari bureau
