Most money spent in Faridkot, least in Nagaland in 2024 LS polls: EC
Faridkot parliamentary constituency in Punjab saw the highest expenditure by candidates in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, with the combined spending to the tune of ₹4.19 crore
Faridkot parliamentary constituency in Punjab saw the highest expenditure by candidates in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, with the combined spending to the tune of ₹4.19 crore, while the Nagaland seat recorded the lowest expenditure across the country, with a combined expenditure by all those in the fray at ₹28.76 lakh, according to data released by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
EC on Wednesday released a 130-page book on last year’s general elections, titled “Atlas”, comprising information on electors, candidates, voters as well as on the election planning, logistics among others. The book also contained the top 50 PCs with highest expenditures as well as the top 50 PCs with the lowest expenditures.
With the highest expenditure, Faridkot PC in Punjab saw an expenditure to the tune of ₹4.19 crore from all candidates combined. ECI said the average spending per elector (those eligible for voting) and per voter (those who exercised their franchise) for Faridkot stood at ₹26.34 and ₹41.40, respectively. The constituency had 1,688 polling stations with 1.59 million electors and 28 candidates in fray. Around 1.01 million votes were polled in the elections. Nagaland PC stood first among the top 50 PCs with lowest expenditure, and all candidates combined spent ₹28.76 lakh, according to ECI data. The constituency had 2,342 polling stations with 1.32 million electors, but only three contesting candidates. The voter turnout remained 57.8% or 760,000.
An analysis of the ECI data showed that the difference in average spending per elector between the highest and the lowest expenditure parliamentary constituencies in the 2024 LS polls was only ₹24.16. In contrast, political parties do not have any ceiling on their expenditure during elections. In a recently published “expenditure report” on ECI’s website for the last year’s general elections, BJP declared its total spending stood at ₹1,737.68 crore, nearly three times the poll expenditure declared by its rival Congress, which spent ₹584.65 crore in the LS polls last summer.
To be sure, because ECI has only listed the 50 constituencies with the highest and the lowest spending by all candidates combined, it is not possible to find the constituencies where the average spending by candidates was the highest or lowest. However, ECI has listed 15 individual winning candidates with the highest and lowest spending. This shows that there was a wide gap between the highest and lowest spending winners. The highest spending winner was Shashi Tharoor of Congress in Thiruvananthapuram PC of Kerala, who spent ₹94.9 lakh. The lowest individual spending was by Pratima Mondal of TMC, who spent just ₹12,500 by herself. To be sure, the amount spent by parties was separate but not included in the report.
All other 14 highest spending candidates — four from the Congress, three from the BJP, two from the TMC, and one each from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), Samajwadi Party (SP), Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), and United People’s Party Liberal (UPPL) — spent over ₹90 lakh each. The other 14 lowest spending candidates — five from the Congress, three independents, two each from the BJP and the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP), and one each from the SP, and the Voice of the People Party — spent between ₹2.1 lakh and ₹27.1 lakh.
Experts have often questioned the influence of money on elections. Chakshu Roy, who heads legislative and civic engagement initiatives at PRS Legislative Research, had told HT that electoral expenditure by parties raises the question whether “legislative intent of limiting influence of money in elections” is served by putting the expenditure limit on candidates fighting elections.
Meanwhile, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Wednesday asserted that the system of poll data is robust and throws up “red flags” which ensure that “nothing can go wrong”.
His remarks came amid allegations of data fudging in the Lok Sabha and assembly elections.
Addressing an event to launch the “Atlas”, Kumar said lakhs of officials including booth level officers feed data. “On the polling day there voter turnout has to be populated every two hours…then the results come with different data sets…(but) what makes us sure that nothing can go wrong is this what I am going to say now: this data is fed by 10.5 lakh polling station personnel; the voter list prepared by 10.5 lakh BLOs…there are so many people who are involved here which makes us extremely confident...nothing can go wrong by design,” he said.
Kumar asserted that this makes EC “extremely confident” that nothing can wrong. He said if someone makes an error, the system won’t accept it.