Hyderabad: In the current parliamentary elections, Andhra Pradesh has emerged as the “most expenditure-sensitive state” -- and not without reason.
Election officials and activists have reported massive infusion of cash and gifts to sway votes.
The election commission has faced an uphill battle against vote buying launching a voter education drive in March against the practice of accepting cash, bribes, liquor or other inducements before elections.
That campaign fell on deaf ears, particularly in Andhra Pradesh.
Activist Lakshman Reddy, who heads the Election Monitoring Forum, said that no other state witnesses as much misuse of money power in the election as AP.
“All the parties put together spend Rs30,000 crore (Rs300 billion, about Dh18.3 billion or $4.97 billion) in the state during the elections," Reddy told a Forum meeting in Kadapa.
Reddy did not cite the source of his estimate of payoffs or gifts used by politicians. But there's a proverbial tip-of-the-iceberg confiscation of election-related cash made by authorities in recent days.
During the last 45 days in the run up to the general elections, the Election Commission seized Rs2.32 billion in unaccounted money, of which nearly half is from the southern state.
The authorities in the state have so far seized Rs1.05 billion. This fact came to light during the review meeting the Chief Election Commissioner V.S. Sampath had with the state election authorities in Hyderabad.
“It is very painful,” said the Chief Electoral Officer Bhanwarlal.
Sampat directed the district collectors and police officials to increase the vigil to stop the flow of cash, liquor and other gifts to bribe the voters.
“We have identified 101 expenditure-sensitive constituencies and directed the officials to take stringent measures," he said.
At the same time the CEC has also warned the voters against accepting any bribe for vote. Accepting gifts from the candidates is a crime and was punishable with one year imprisonment, Sampat said.
Apart from increasing the number of flying squads and surveillance teams, village awareness groups were also being increased to educate the voters.
In the most startling such seizure, the authorities caught former minister K. Parthasarathi’s wife Kamala with Rs4.5 million cash. She was carrying the money from Hyderabad in a bus to Guntur.
Parthsarathi is YSR Congress party’s candidate frOm Machlipatanam Lok Sabha constituency. He claimed that the money in possession of his wife was legal and he had accounts to show it.
Earlier the authorities had seized Rs9 million from a Telugu Desam Party candidate travelling by another bus.
The officials had also caught Jagga Reddy, Congress candidate from Sangareddy assembly constituency, distributing cash and other gifts to voters.
