The Election Commission (EC) has disagreed with the expenditure incurred by four of the eight candidates who contested the Lok Sabha election in the Gulbarga (Reserved) constituency. The EC added an additional amount of Rs. 28,16,564 to the expenditure accounts submitted by the four candidates.
Official sources said here on Tuesday that the former Railway Minister M. Mallikarjun Kharge, BJP candidate and former Minister Revu Naik Belamagi, BSP candidate Mahadev B. Dhanni and Sharanbasappa Malakajappa of the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) were the candidates targeted by the EC.
The expenditure observer appointed by the EC approved the increase in expense by the four candidates according to the shadow observation register maintained as per the procedure specified by the EC.
The expenditure observer added the highest amount of Rs. 17,85,906 in addition to the expenditure of Rs. 26,46,847 shown by Mr. Kharge and a sum of Rs. 7,12,952 was added to the original expenditure of Rs. 19,67,737 submitted by Mr. Belamagi.
The observer also did not agree with the expenditure of Rs. 4,04,871 submitted by Mr. Dhanni and added Rs. 1,14,101 as expenditure to his accounts. Mr. Malakajappa had submitted accounts showing an expenditure of Rs. 1,71,500, but the observer added Rs. 2,00,605 to the accounts.
However, the observer agreed with the expenditure statement of other candidates, including AAP candidate B.T. Lalitha Naik, D.G. Sagar of the Janata Dal (Secular) and BPP candidate Shankar Jadhav. Independent candidate Ramu has not submitted his expenditure statement.
While Mr. Kharge in his expenditure statement had stated that he had not received any big amount from the Congress, BJP candidate declared that he received Rs. 15 lakh from the General Election Trust based in Mumbai but not any amount from his party.
The SUCI candidate had received Rs. 1,71,500 from the party for expenditure, and Ms. Naik had received Rs. 5 lakh from her party and Rs. 17,526 as donation from the public.
