Delhi polls expenditure report shows AAP, Congress outspent BJP

New Delhi: BJP gave Rs 17 crore – Rs 25 lakh each – to its 68 candidates who fought the Delhi Assembly elections in February while AAP channelled Rs 2.23 crore to 23 of its 70 candidates, including Rs 10 lakh to its chief Arvind Kejriwal. Congress, however, did not individually fund any of its 70 candidates.

The expenditure reports filed by parties with the Election Commission showed that AAP spent a total of Rs 14.51 crore on electioneering in January-February this year while Congress spent Rs 46.18 crore on campaigning. The BJP is yet to submit its full expenditure report and the part expenditure report showed funding all its candidates on an equal footing.

The limit for expenditure by an individual candidate in Delhi is Rs 40 lakh while a party can spend as much money it wants in a constituency. The expenditure reports filed by parties do not reflect the money spent by party candidates.

According to the full expenditure report submitted by AAP, the party has spent Rs 12.12 crore on election propaganda, including on media advertisements, posters and notices. It spent Rs 16 lakh on advertising criminal antecedents of its candidates. For advertisements on Google, it spent Rs 2.24 crore while Rs 73.57 lakh was spent for publicity on Facebook.

The party also gave the highest Rs 39 lakh to its Moti Nagar candidate Shiv Charan Goel, who lost to BJP’s Harish Khurana. While party chief Arvind Kejriwal got only Rs 10 lakh and Chief Ministerial candidate Atishi and former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia Rs 20 lakh each, Gopal Rai received Rs 24.75 lakh, Saurabh Bharadwaj Rs 22.8 lakh and Satyendar Jain Rs 23 lakh.

Congress spent around Rs 5.94 crore for campaign on social media while it spent Rs 17.93 crore on media advertisement and text messages and Rs 18 crore on posters and other campaign materials. For holding public meetings, it spent Rs 4.85 crore while spending Rs 37,104 on star campaigners’ expenses.

It accounted Rs 2.79 crore for printing guarantee cards besides spending Rs 20.11 lakh for live streaming events and Rs 33,500 for press conferences.

The money spent by other parties shows the gap between the main parties and marginal players. AIMIM, which fielded two candidates spent just Rs 1.86 lakh for printing criminal antecedents of its nominees while CPI(M) spent Rs 7.5 lakh, including giving Rs 3.20 lakh to its two candidates.

In its part statement, CPI said it gave one of its candidates Rs 5,000 and the other Rs 15,000. CPI(ML)L did not incur any expense on campaigning as it was managed by candidates. BSP spent Rs 1.79 crore on campaigning while not funding any individual candidate.

LJP (Ram Vilas), which contested one seat in alliance with BJP, showed Rs 39,770 as office expenses related to election.