New Delhi, Mar 26: In a bid to keep a close watch on the spending of candidates, the Election Commission has advised the poll officials in districts to prepare a 'rate list' of every election-related items normally used by a contestant.
Poll observers would prepare a rate list in the district for items like hiring of transport and erection of shamianas and other election-related issues so as to compare with the expenditure submitted by a candidate at the end of the poll, EC spokesman AN Jha told reporters in New Delhi on Friday.
"We want to make an assessment of what is the market rate as candidates sometime submit the expenditure with less value", he said.
Refusing to take any questions on the political advertisements on the television channels, he said that the Commission has seized of the matter and its views would be known as soon as a decision was taken on the issue.
About the progress in the probe into the social security scheme forms found in the BJP office in Mumbai, Jha said that the Commission would have received the opinion of the Union Labour Secretary and would response to it after analysing it.
Jha also said that there was no change in the poll schedule for Goa. Election Commissioner BB Tandon had indicated during a visit to that State that the Commission could consider the requests of opposition parties to postpone the poll schedule in view of important religious events in the state. Bureau Report