Poll expenditure of candidates detailed S Rajen was the highest spender : Report

By Our Staff Reporter
IMPHAL, May 9: MLA Sorokhaibam Rajen of Lamsang AC had the highest expenditure in the 12th Manipur Legislative Assembly election. He spent Rs 22,38,135, according to a report of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), New Delhi.
The report titled ‘Manipur Election 2022: Analysis of Election Expenditure Statements of MLAs’ was released today at Imphal and Delhi simultaneously.
At Imphal, the report was released at the Kwakeithel Thiyam Leikai office of the Youth Collective Manipur (YCM) where ADR Manipur State Coordinator Babloo Loitongbam was also present.
According to the same report, Dr Yumnam Radheshyam of Hiyanglam AC incurred the lowest expenditure of Rs 3,94,642.
Babloo Loitongbam said that all the other candidates who contested the 12th Manipur Legislative Assembly election made expenditures in between the highest and lowest expenditures made by S Rajen and Dr Y Radheshyam respectively.
Citing the same ADR report, Babloo noted that all the candidates made expenditures well below the expenditure ceiling of Rs 28 lakh fixed by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
He then appealed to all the people to see if the expenditure figures given in the ADR report are compatible with the actual expenditures.
At the same time, the Chief Minister had gone on record stating that the MLAs had to spent crores of rupees to win the election, Babloo noted.
It is time for all the people to ponder over whether the expenditure statements given by the MLAs in their affidavits are compatible with the ground reality or not, he added.
YCM Coordinator Thongam Zingo said that candidates should submit their expenditure statements within 30 days of declaration of election results as per the Representation of Peoples Act 1951, and they may file election petitions within 45 days.
Sometimes there is delay in uploading expenditure figures of candidates by the ECI on its website even after submission of expenditure statements by candidates.
In such cases, people who wish to file election petitions based on the expenditure statements cannot do so within the given period of 45 days, Zingo said.
As such, there is a need to extend the period given for filing election petitions, he said.