Senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde on Friday found himself in the dock over his candid admission that he had spent as much as Rs8 crore — several times more than the permissible expenditure limit of Rs25 lakh for a candidate — on his 2009 lok Sabha poll campaign, with the ruling Congress-NCP alliance and an RTI activist asking the Election Commission to take serious cognisance of the breach.
“When I contested and won the Assembly elections for the first time in 1980, I had spent Rs29,000 on my campaign. But I spent as much as Rs8 crore on my campaign during the last lok Sabha elections in 2009,” Munde said on Thursday evening, while speaking at a book release function held in the presence of Gujarat CM Narendra Modi and former BJP chief Nitin Gadkari.
“I hope no Election Commission official is present among the audience. Even if an EC authority is present here, six more months are to go for the lok Sabha polls,” Munde went onto add.
lamenting that it had become virtually impossible for political leaders of different hues to contest polls, Munde said: “Tell me as to how political leaders can spend that much of money to become MPsIJ That’s why it is necessary for the State-funding of the candidates’ expenses in the elections”.