Each vote in UP cost Rs 750

Major parties spent Rs 5,500 crore on poll campaign: Study
New Delhi : In Uttar Pradesh, major parties spent more than Rs 5,500 crore on campaigning, including about Rs 1,000 crore towards ‘note for vote’, with nearly one-third voters admitting to cash or liquor offer, a survey claimed today.
According to the CMS pre-post poll study, a sum of more than Rs 5,500 crore was spent by major political parties in the just-concluded Assembly elections in UP alone. Though the Election Commission of India allows Rs 25 lakh per candidate as campaign cost, it is an open secret that most candidates spend much more than what is officially allowed.
A sum of Rs 600-900 crore was spent on conventional and non-conventional campaign activities, including campaign material, widescreen projections, video vans and the like. “Every vote cast in UP involved a cost of about Rs 750, which is the highest in the country,” the survey noted.
In these Assembly elections, huge sums — nearly Rs 200 crore in UP and over Rs 100 crore in Punjab— were confiscated, the report said, adding that what had actually gone into the campaign pipeline was at least four times more than what was confiscated by the authorities.
Going by that trend, an estimated Rs 1,000 crore were distributed among voters during these elections. The survey noted that 55 per cent voters sampled in Uttar Pradesh personally knew someone in the neighbourhood who had taken money for vote. Surprisingly, the study noted that demonetisation had significantly hiked poll expenditure. Two-thirds of voters found that candidates had spent a lot more than ever before. Some of the campaign methods adopted in UP were door-to-door, rallies, yatras, social media, advertising through TV and newspapers and multi-screen projections, motor cycle rallies, langar and celebrity shows.