Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday came down heavily on the Centre for raising the ceiling of electoral expenditures to Rs 70 lakh insisting it would not only stop the honest and the smaller parties from contesting elections leaving the field open to the larger outfits but also it would encourage more corruption and involvement of capitalist interests in electoral politics.
The Chief Minister wrote on a social networking site that the outgoing UPA-II was taking such policy decisions which were beyond its brief and should better be left to the next Government insisting the decision to raise the ceiling of electoral expenditure from Rs 40 lakh to Rs 70 lakh from would only fan further corruption.
Curiously the Bengal Opposition parties had been alleging large-scale corruption on the part of Trinamool Congress to fund its election campaigns by joining hands with the ponzy fund companies like the Saradha and others.