Telangana elections: EC officials on their toes as cash and booze set to play major role

Hyderabad, Oct 22: Elections are round the corner in Telangana and for the Election Commission, the biggest challenge would controlling the cash flow. The state intelligence unit says that cash would play a major factor in the elections and no party would leave any stone unturned the lure the voter with money in a bid to win this prestigious election.

The two major challenges that the EC would have is to curb the flow of liquor and cash. It is not without reason that the Election Commission is worried. The highest amount of cash seized was from an undivided Andhra Pradesh in 2014. Incidentally the cash seized accounted for more than half the total money seized across India. In AP alone the cash seized amounted to Rs 154 crore, while the all India number stood at Rs 303 crore.

The money worry:

EC officials have been having sleepless nights over this issue. The TRS wants to leave no stone unturned to retain the state, while the Congress-TD combine is going all out to unseat the TRS.

In this context one must also note that the three richest MPs in the current Lok Sabha are from Andhra and Telangana. Data provided by the Association for Democratic Reforms states that TDP's Jayadeva Galla from Guntur is top on the list with assets over Rs 683 crore.

He is followed by Konda Vishweshwar of the TRS from Chelvella with Rs 528 crore. The BJP's Gokaraju Gangaraju from Narsapuram comes third with Rs 288 crore.

The luring of the voter with cash has already been caught on camera recently. Ravinder Reddy of the TRS who is contesting from Yallareddy was recently caught on camera offering voters Rs 5, if they voted for him. In the video the women voters were also seen bargaining with him.

Nayini Narasimha, the Home Minister of the state landed himself in a controversy after he said that KCR had offered Rs 10 crore for his electoral expenses, if he agreed to contest from a different constituency. He however backtracked on his statement later.

The ECI apart from using its squad to keep a track of the money flow would also use an application to curb the flow of money in the elections. C-Vigil an application would be used in this regard. Through this application, the people can upload photographs or videos of violations of the model code of conduct.

This application would be monitored by the EC. This would help the EC get information on the violations and also keep a tab on the inflow of money.