The State Election Commission has rejected the nominations of 219 candidates of the panchayat elections on the ground that they did not submit their expense statements of the last panchayat polls despite regular reminders. A total of 12,024 candidates who contested the last panchayat polls did not care to submit their elections expenses and were disqualified by the Commission from contesting the elections this time.
The candidates of the panchayat elections are required to submit a detailed statement of the campaign expenses within one month of the polls. Thousands of candidates of the panchayat elections of the year 2008 choose not to submit the statement of the expenditure they incurred. The State Election Commission however adopted a very lenient approach and said that all such candidates can still contest the elections of 2014 if they submit their statements of previous polls before the last date of filing of the nomination papers.
The matter went to the High Court, while hearing a Public Interest litigation filed by Hayat Singh Adhikari the HC asked the Election Commission to submit a list of such candidates. The data released by SEC states that 7,246 candidates of Pradhans, 4,090 candidates for Member Block Panchayat, 667 members of District Panchayat, 07 candidates of Pramukh, 06 candidates of Senior Deputy Pramukh and 08 candidates of Junior Deputy Pramukh did not submitted their expenditure statements of 2008 panchayat elections even up to June 5, 2014. The Commission disqualified these candidates from contesting the 2014 elections. A total of 219 persons out this disqualified lot filed nomination papers in the present panchayat elections and the commission duly rejected their nominations.
According to the SEC guidelines a member Village Panchayat can spend a maximum amount of `5000, a Pradhan Village Panchayat `25,000, a member Block Panchayat `25,000 and a member District Panchayat can spend `70,000 in these elections.