Poll expenses not to exceed Rs 70 lakh: Dana Kishore

Hyderabad: District Election Officer Dana Kishore said that the expenses limit for the ensuing Parliament is fixed at Rs 70 lakh for each candidate.

He was speaking at a meeting held with the representatives of political parties to discuss election arrangements, establishment of additional polling centres, price fixing of election campaign materials and other election related issues, here at GHMC main office on Monday.

Returning officers of Hyderabad and Secunderabad Parliament constituencies Manik Raj and Ravi respectively, assistant returning officers and nodal officers also attended the meeting

.

Dana Kishore said that each candidate has to pay Rs 25,000 as nomination deposit.

Respective returning officers would receive nominations every day from 11 am in the morning to 3 pm in the evening, he said.

Measures are being taken to monitor the elections expenses by various political parties, like formation of flying squads, static surveillance teams, video surveillance teams, accounting teams and media monitoring teams have been appointed, he said.

Dana Kishore warned against writing on walls and affixing of posters, cut outs, banners and hoardings during election campaign.

Name of the candidate, printing press and other details should be furnished on posters and other campaign material, he said.

There are 3,976 polling centres in Hyderabad and in view of increase in voters, 19 additional polling centers may be established, he said.

Voter awareness programmes on use of voting machines are being conducted using 100 EVMs and another 120 EVMS are being used to train Pos and APOs, he said.

In every assembly segment, a model polling station would be established for voter awareness, he said.

In view of summer season, tents would be arranged at polling centres.

The prices of campaign material have been fixed and political parties can raise objections to the prices, if any, he said. Nodal officers Advaith Kumar, Vishwajit Kampati, Musharaf Ali, Sikta Patnaik, Jayaraj Kennedy and others participated in the meeting.