{"id":31526,"date":"2024-10-29T20:02:25","date_gmt":"2024-10-29T14:32:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/?p=31526"},"modified":"2024-10-29T20:02:27","modified_gmt":"2024-10-29T14:32:27","slug":"election-expenditure-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/29-10-2024\/election-expenditure-in-india","title":{"rendered":"Election Expenditure in India"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS2\/Polity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Context<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The <strong>total expenditure for U.S. presidential and Congressional elections<\/strong><strong>in 2024 <\/strong>is estimated at around <strong>U.S. $16 billion (equivalent to \u20b91,36,000 crores).<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>According to the Centre for Media Studies (CMS), the total expenditure by various political parties for the general election to Lok Sabha this year was <strong>around \u20b91,00,000 crores.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Election Expenditure Limit in India<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>It is \u20b995 lakh per Lok Sabha constituency in larger States and \u20b975 lakh in smaller States.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>With respect to Legislative Assemblies, they are \u20b940 lakh and \u20b928 lakh for larger and smaller States respectively.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>These limits are set, from time to time, by the <strong>Election Commission (EC).\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>There are <strong>no limits on the expenditure of political parties <\/strong>during elections.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Global Standards<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>In the U.S.<\/strong>, the financing for elections happens primarily by contributions from individuals, corporations, and political action committees (PAC).\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>There are <strong>super PACs <\/strong>on which there are no limits for spending.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>In the U.K.,<\/strong> a political party is allowed to spend \u00a354,010 for each constituency they contest.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>There are also limits placed on candidates\u2019 spending during the campaign period.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Concerns with High Electoral Expenditure\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Inequality in Representation:<\/strong> Wealthy candidates or parties dominate elections, marginalizing those with fewer resources and leading to a lack of diverse representation.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Corruption: <\/strong>It can lead candidates to engage in corrupt practices, such as bribing voters or manipulating election outcomes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Creation of Entry Barrier: <\/strong>Increased expenditure that is met primarily through large donations creates an unholy nexus between the elected representatives and donors who seek favours.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>This acts as an entry barrier into electoral politics for many well-meaning citizens.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Suggested Reforms<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>The Indrajit Gupta Committee (1998) and the Law Commission report (1999) <\/strong>have advocated for <strong>State funding of elections.<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>This would mean the government partially bears the election expenditures of candidates nominated by recognised political parties.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Simultaneous elections <\/strong>are suggested for addressing the issue of rising election expenditures.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>It refers to the idea of holding <strong>Lok Sabha and State legislative assembly elections together,<\/strong> with the aim of reducing the frequency of elections and their associated costs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Recommendations as per the<strong> EC\u2019s 2016 report on \u2018Proposed Electoral Reforms<\/strong>:\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The law must be amended to <strong>explicitly provide that \u2018financial assistance\u2019 <\/strong>by a political party to its candidate should also be within the candidate\u2019s prescribed election expenditure limits.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>There should be a <strong>ceiling on political party expenditures<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Additional judges may be appointed in High Courts <\/strong>for the speedy disposal of election-related cases, which would act as a deterrent against violating these norms.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/elections\/the-burgeoning-expenditure-of-elections-explained\/article68806360.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>TH<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The total expenditure for U.S. presidential and Congressional electionsin 2024 is estimated at around U.S. $16 billion (equivalent to \u20b91,36,000 crores).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31527,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31526\/revisions\/31527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}