EC notice to Digvijaya Singh, Sadhvi Pragya Thakur over poll expenditure

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has served notices to Congress' Digvijaya Singh and his rival from the BJP, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, over alleged discrepancies in election expenditure. Both the leaders are contesting the Lok Sabha election from Madhya Pradesh's Bhopal constituency. 

Giving an account of election expenses to the poll panel, Singh claimed to have spent Rs 21,30,136 till Friday. However, during verification, EC's special expenditure observer team found that Singh had spent Rs 39,47,674, sources told Zee News.

Pragya Singh Thakur, on the other hand, submitted an election expenditure of around Rs 6,27,663. However, the election panel put her poll expenses at Rs 13,51,756.

As per the EC’s guidelines, every registered political party has to file its accounts of election expenses within 90 days after the completion of the election process.

Voting in Bhopal will take place in the sixth phase on May 12 along with 58 other seats across seven states.

The EC on Friday also sought details of expenses incurred by Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president Raj Thackeray on the election rallies.

"We sought guidance regarding the complaint and were told that the MNS is a registered political party and should give details of the expenses incurred on its election rallies. The notices to this effect are being sent to Raj Thackeray through district collectors of the areas where he addressed rallies," an official told news agency PTI.

An election official said the notice for submission of election expenditure was issued after consultations with the Election Commission following a complaint from the BJP demanding that expenditure incurred on MNS rallies be shown in the accounts of opposition candidates in the nine Lok Sabha constituencies where Raj Thackeray addressed rallies.

Elections for 542 seats of Lok Sabha will end with voting in 59 seats in the seventh phase on May 19 while counting of votes will take place on May 23 and results will be declared simultaneously.