Despite the frequent reminders from the District Election Authorities, some of the candidates who are contesting the Assembly elections are yet to submit their campaign expense details to the three-member squad of Election Expenditure observers in the district.
Election officials said: “The negligence will be taken very seriously as per the direction issued by District Collector N. Prasanth, who is also the District Election Officer.” The observers’ team had conducted two rounds of sittings to check the campaign expense details of the candidates at the Collectorate but some of the candidates failed to attend the session, they said.
As part of taking legal actions, the special permissions previously granted to such candidates for on-road campaigns using microphones will be suspended in the first phase.
More stringent actions will be considered in case of noticing further negligence.
The third and final sitting of the three-member observers’ team to review the candidates’ campaign expenses will be held at the Collectorate on May 14.
According to the election authorities, the complete records of public campaigns and the money invested for the same by candidates or their parties will have to be produced before the team for verification.
The shadow register prepared by the election authorities too will be compared with the candidates’ records for authentication.
The negligence will be taken very seriously as per the direction issued by District Collector
N. Prasanth
Election officials
