Kerala MLAs biggest spenders for Assembly election in South

Kerala MLAs lead the way in terms of money spent for Assembly election expenditure among their counterparts in South India, says a report.

On an average Kerala MLAs have spent Rs 19.6 lakh out of the Rs 28 lakh expenditure limit fixed by the Election Commission of India (EC) for the Assembly election while the rest of the Southern states have only spent less than 50 per cent of the expenditure limit, the report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

The report said Tamil Nadu MLAs have recorded second highest expenditure with expense of Rs 13.36 lakh followed by Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The report did not include the election expenditure of the recently concluded Karnataka Assembly polls.

The legislators of the southern states have spent the most on vehicles used for campaign, which almost accounted for 30 per cent of total expenditure. They have spent about 25 per cent on campaign materials and 20 per cent on public meetings and processions. The least expense was on the campaigning through print and electronic media.

As far as vote share is concerned, none of the political parties or alliances which formed the government in their respective states in the South won with more than 50 per cent of vote share. Among them, the report said Andhra Pradesh has the highest vote share of 49.9 per cent by an elected government while Telangana has the lowest with 43.3 per cent.

The report said out of the 128 MLA who have declared cases related to electoral malpractices across the country, 44 are from the southern states. Twenty of them are from Karnataka, 11 from Tamil Nadu, six from Telangana, five from Andhra Pradesh and two from Puducherry, it said.