One-third of this total amount, or Rs 45,000-50,000 crore, has been spent on state assembly elections, CMS found.
About Rs 30,000 crore has been spent on panchayat polls, Rs 20,000 crore for mandals, Rs 15,000 crore for municipal elections and a further Rs 10,000 crore for zilla parishads, it added.
“In a typical Lok Sabha poll, media campaigns (25 per cent) and pre-poll expenditure by parties in power (20-25 per cent) account for a big pie of the spending.
“In smaller elections, things are different. Media spending is much lower and in the mandals and panchayats, rally expenses are virtually non-existent,” says Rao, who is tracking election spending since 1996.
Elaborating further, he said that the expenditure by political parties is less than 10 per cent in local elections compared to 20 per cent in a Lok Sabha election.
“On the other hand, the funds spent by candidates to get nomination is much higher than in case of Lok Sabha,” he claimed.
On corporate funding, CMS is of the view that spending by companies pick up significant pace where winning electors can influence legislations.
“The huge requirement of funds from parties to candidates and finally the way these expenses are dealt with shows that the party system has crumbled. When outside candidates fight polls from a place they are not aware of, note-for-vote happens in a big way. Unless election expenses are properly accounted for, there is no way to ensure good governance,” Rao said.
