Ahead of assembly polls, ECI seizes over Rs 400 crore

Illicit inducements worth over Rs 408 crore meant to influence voters in four states and a Union territory have been seized in the past month, the Election Commission of India said on Thursday.

While assembly elections and by-elections were announced on March 15, the Electronic Seizure Management System (ESMS) was activated on February 26, it said.

Since its activation, over Rs 408.82-crore worth of illicit inducements, including Rs 17.44 crore in cash, liquor worth Rs 37.68 crore (16.3 lakh litres), drugs worth Rs 167.38 crore, precious metals worth Rs 23 crore and other freebies worth over Rs 163.30 crore, have been seized by multiple enforcement agencies, the EC said.

Besides, 70,944 complaints were lodged using the Vigil application between March 15 and 25. Of these, 70,831 have been disposed of and 67,899 complaints (95.8 per cent) were resolved within 100 minutes, it said.

VIGIL is a mobile application developed by the EC to enable citizens to report model code of conduct violations during elections. Assembly elections will be held in West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala next month. A complaint redressal system has been set up, including a call centre number, 1950, on which complaints can be lodged by any member of the public or political party, with the district election officer or returning officer concerned.

The commission has stressed that the enforcement authorities should ensure that ordinary citizens are not inconvenienced or harassed during the checking and inspection for the enforcement of its directives. District grievance committees have also been set up to address any grievances in this regard, the EC said.