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The expense for contesting an election is based on the candidate’s income. Nonetheless, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has a spending cap.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has turned down Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President JP Nadda’s offer to contest Lok Sabha polls due to financial constraints. The finance minister speaking at a summit on Wednesday (March 27) said she does not have ‘the kind of money’ to fight the Lok Sabha elections.
“After thinking over a week or ten days, I went back to say… maybe not. I do not have that kind of money to contest,” PTI quoted her as saying.
“I also have a problem whether it is Andhra Pradesh or Tamil Nadu. It’s also going to be a question of various other winnability criteria that they use…Are you from this community or are you from that religion? Are you from this? I said no, I do not think I am going to able to do it,” the finance minister added.
Wondering how much money a candidate needs to run in a Lok Sabha election? Let’s check this out:
The expense for contesting an election is based on the candidate’s income. Nonetheless, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has a spending cap.
9.5 million cap for Lok Sabha
A candidate can not spend more than 9.5 million for bigger constituencies with more voters, and up to 7.5 million for smaller constituencies. While the limit for assembly constituencies is 4 million for a bigger seat and 2 million for a seat with a smaller size and less voters.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has never contested Lok Sabha elections for which a candidate needs hectic campaigning. She has been a Rajya Sabha member, which of course doesn’t require that kind of people connect and campaigning strategies.
She declared a net worth of about 25 million in her affidavit when she contested the Rajya Sabha polls in 2016.
So far in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, with declared assets worth over 583 millions, Ashok Kumar, the AIADMK candidate for the Erode seat, is the richest candidate.
It is worth mentioning here that, in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, of the top 10 richest candidates, six were from the Congress party. The richest was an independent candidate Ramesh Kumar Sharma, who contested from Patliputra in Bihar. Sharma had declared assets worth over 1,107 million.
(With inputs from agencies)