Election observers will watch out for possible misuse of cash vans, which are engaged by banks to replenish cash in ATMs and branches, by candidates / political parties to ferry cash during the upcoming elections.
Earlier instances of candidates of political parties using cash vans as a camouflage to transport cash to constituencies have prompted the Election Commission (EC) to ask banks to keep tabs on them.
According to K Unnikrishnan, Deputy Chief Executive, India Banks’ Association, in view of the EC’s concern about cash belonging to private parties being ferried in cash vans, banks have already been given instructions about the standard operating procedure to be followed when it comes to transportation of cash.
He pointed out that since banks engage the services of cash management service companies to transport cash to ATMs and branches, the bank authorities issue an authorisation letter to the company employees transporting cash via vans.
However, banks will not be in a position to monitor whether, besides their own cash, the van is transporting cash belonging to a third party.
To curb money power (distribution of cash or any other bribe among electors) during the elections, the EC has put in place measures such as deployment of flying squads, static surveillance teams, accounting teams and video surveillance teams.
The Commission has asked the Income Tax Department and the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Government to keep a watch on the movement of cash during elections.
Stock cheque booksSince each candidate is required to open a separate bank account for election purpose and incur all election expenses from the said bank account by issuing cheques, bank branches have been instructed to stock sufficient number of cheque books to meet this demand.
According to the revised ceiling on election expenses of candidates, the maximum limit of election expenses for a Lok Sabha constituency for all States and the National Capital Territory (Union Territory) of Delhi is set at ₹70 lakh a candidate. This ceiling is pegged at ₹54 lakh a candidate for Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Sikkim and other Union Territories.
For the assembly constituencies, the maximum limit is ₹28 lakh a candidate for the bigger States and NCT of Delhi and ₹20 lakh a candidate in other States and Union Territory of Puducherry.
Prior to the revision, the limit of expenditure for a parliamentary constituency in bigger states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh was ₹40 lakh.
The maximum limits of election expenditure vary from State to State. The lowest limit for a parliamentary constituency was ₹16 lakh for the constituency of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu and Lakshadweep.
The limit of election expenditure for an Assembly constituency in the bigger States was ₹16 lakh. The lowest limit for Assembly constituency was ₹8 lakh in Goa, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and Puducherry.