Candidates stare at costly campaign

Vizianagaram: The election schedule released by the Election Commission of India (ECI) disappointed political parties the candidates as it portends huge costs. Politicians and officials expected that our state may go to polls in third week of April and by the end of April they will be relieved of election burdens. Now with the EC fixing election date as May 13, leaders will be forced to bear extra expenses for three weeks beyond their expectation.

To reduce costs, they slowed down campaign pace in view of escalating expenditure. Most of the leaders and aspirants have diluted rigorous campaign scheduled for the first week of April. As of now the MLA aspirants need to maintain two-three teams to visit every village and ward in their constituency. They have to pay a minimum of Rs 500-700 per day besides costly food and liquor for the male party activist. The youth will be paid more for the fuel bills for their two-wheelers and cars.

All this expenditure is estimated at around Rs 5 lakh in rural constituencies and around Rs 10 lakh in urban constituencies like Visakha and Vizianagaram per day.

The present long schedule will certainly push the MLA candidates into financial troubles as they are forced to spend continuously for around two months. They have to redesign their plans and schedules.

A TDP candidate said he thought that the money he had would be enough for his expenditure, but it seems that it would not long last as schedule was prolonged for three weeks more. “I need to get more money to meet the expenditure. I have to make daily payments to women campaigners and for youth too. Apart from that, I have to organise liquor parties frequently in which a huge number of people, cadres take part. I can’t restrict the public and youth from entering these parties, which is draining my pocket.

Now I have to finetune my campaign plan to minimise the expenditure. I

will intensify the door-to-door publicity and campaign from second week of April,”

he explained.