The expenditure made by the various candidates during the forthcoming Assembly polls will come for closer scrutiny not just by the Election Commission of India but also by the Income Tax Department which is set to play a bigger role in monitoring expenses of candidates this time round.
All the banks have already been directed by the Election Commission to report any unusual transactions detected during the campaign period to not just the Commission but also to Income Tax Department for scrutiny and action, sources in the Income Tax Department here informed. It may be recalled that the Election Commission as a procedure had directed all the candidates who would be in the poll fray to open separate bank accounts for making poll related expenditure.
The expenditure made by the candidates from their bank accounts opened for the purpose of meeting poll related expenditure will be under constant vigil by observers deployed for the purpose by the Election Commission in every Assembly segment of the State, source stated.
The Election Commission is expecting high amount of accountability from the banking staff as well as those monitoring poll expenditure to report any violation of poll expense norms by the candidates across the State.
This apart, the Income Tax Department will start deploying its staff as per the Election Commission directives as soon as the Model Code of Conduct gets enforced in the State to monitor unusual movement of cash in all railway stations, bus stands , airports and other inter-state gateways to keep an eye on persons trying to smuggle in large amount of cash in the various Assembly segments.
The Income Tax Department officials would be helped by the police which had been assigned the task of checking baggage of passengers and questioning those suspected to be carrying large amount of cash across districts. The Income Tax Department would take over the task of carrying out further scrutiny if huge amount of cash is found in person with any individual to find out its sources and to enable further legal proceedings, sources stated.
The Economic Offences Wing (EoW) and the Enforcement Directorate would also be involved in detecting unexplained large flow of cash during the poll period, sources informed.