Notices issued to 15 candidates after discrepancies in campaign expense

PUNE: While candidates of all major parties have spent lakhs of rupees on campaigning ahead of the state assembly elections, notices have been issued to 15 candidates including seven MLAs after discrepancies were found in the expenditure submitted by the candidates and that in the records of the Pune district election administration. Among those who have been served notice are: Sunil Tingre from the Nationalist Congress Party/NCP (Ajit Pawar), state higher and technical education minister Chandrakant Patil, Siddharth Shirole, Bhimrao Tapkir, Chetan Tupe, Ravindra Dhangekar and Bapusaheb Pathare.
There are eight constituencies in Pune city namely Wadgaonsheri, Shivajinagar, Kothrud, Khadakwasla, Parvati, Hadapsar, Pune Cantonment and Kasba Peth. Candidates are allowed to spend up to ₹40 lakh on campaigning. The campaign expenses incurred by the candidates were examined in three stages with the examination carried out in the presence of the election expenditure inspector.
MLA Sunil Tingre of Wadgaonsheri constituency incurred the highest campaign expenditure at ₹24.39 lakh; followed by former MLA of Wadgaonsheri constituency Bapusaheb Pathare at ₹23.55 lakh; and sitting MLA of Khadakwasla constituency Bhimrao Tapkir at ₹22.57 lakh.
Suhas Diwase, Pune district collector and election officer, said, “A discrepancy has been found between the expenditure submitted by the candidate and the expenditure statement in the records. The highest discrepancy of ₹7.14 lakh has been observed in the expenses submitted by Sachin Dodke of the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) in the Khadakwasla constituency. After that, a discrepancy of ₹7.10 lakh has been found in the expenses of BJP candidate Chandrakant Patil in the Kothrud constituency. The final inspection will be carried out in the presence of the election expenditure inspector after 30 days from voting.”