BJP wants expenses of Congress leaders credited in candidates

New Delhi, Feb 7 (UNI) The Bharatiya Janata Party today demanded the Election Commission credit all the expenses of the Congress leaders, involved in the poll campaign in Uttarkhand, Punjab and Manipur to the accounts of party nominees and not into the party account as it had failed to furnish its list of party leaders as required under the Representation of the People Act.

A delegation, led by BJP Vice President Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and other senior leaders seeking to highlight this 'serious flaw' before the full bench of the EC this afternoon, told the Commission that the party would minutely watch the expenses incurred on every Congress leaders in these states and add it to the expenses of candidates and not to the Congress party.

Section 77 of the RPA provides for exempting 40 leaders whose campaign expenses should be credited to the party account and not individual candidates by furnishing the list to the E C within seven days after the declaration of election dates. However, since Congress has not even furnished the list within the prescribed time, the campaign expenses including the travel, stay and rally expenses will now have to be accounted to individual candidates and not to the party, Mr Naqvi told newspersons after the meeting.

He said as far as the BJP was concerned, it had furnished the list of its leaders starting from Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani, Rajnath Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi, M Venkaiah Naidu, Narendra Modi and Chief Ministers of party-ruled states in its list and the expenses of these leaders would be taken into the party's account.

Since Congress has failed to do so, all the expenses will now have to be taken into the account of individual nominees and if the expenses exceeded the prescribed limits, than the candidates could face disqualification for violation of election code.

The E C, on its part, promised to look into the BJP's complaint with all seriousness, mr Naqvi said.

The BJP delegation included BJP Spokesmen Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Prakash Javadekar and former Rajya Sabha MP Balbir Punj.

UNI