HYDERABAD: The poll fever is escalating and the political parties are taking out all weapons in their arsenal to win the ensuing elections. Though the Election Commission has capped the expenditure of each candidate at Rs 70 lakh, it is an open secret that the actual amount spent by parties often ends up running into crores.
At this juncture, with the Lok Sabha elections right around the corner, Express takes a look at the expenses made by four major political parties -- Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Indian National Congress (INC) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- during the 2014 elections.
As per the election expenditure report submitted to the Election Commission of India (ECI) during general elections 2014, the Congress emerged as the highest spender, the party was in power at the central government then.
Barring the Congress’ present condition to keep its flock together in the state assembly with continuous defections, back then the grand old party spent Rs 25 crore in Telangana alone to contest in both parliamentary elections.
The party spent the most for media advertisements at Rs 14.3 crore across various platforms. This was especially because it was important for the party at the time to claim the credit of separate statehood.
Interestingly, The TDP spent the least at Rs10 crore. Though the party did not show a break-up of expenses incurred in Telangana and AP, it can be held that the party directed most of its funds to AP.
The TRS has made substantial gains in terms of the amount spent when compared to the number seats it got in 2014, as it had spent just Rs 14 crore and gained a massive victory. The BJP, that was riding on a ‘Modi wave’, spent Rs 13 crore. It may be noted that the party was in alliance with the TDP and contested in limited seats in the State.
