Political parties to bear all expenses of star campaigners: EC

Political parties will have to bear the expenses on inviting star campaigners but in case a candidate shares dais with the star or exhibits his photo or poster with his name, the money spent will be included in his account, Delhi Election Commission said.

Moreover, if star campaigner travels with candidate, then 50 per cent of the travel expenses will be apportioned to the expenditure of candidate.

In case the advertisement for general party propaganda with photo or appeal of the star campaigner is made in the print or the electronic media without any reference to any candidate, expenditure on such general advertisement will be included in the account of the political party.

Political parties will have to communicate the list of their star campaigners to Delhi Chief Electoral Officer within seven days of the poll's notification, which is fixed for November 9, the election Commission said.

The commission has received representation from the political parties suggesting that if any representative of print or electronic media travels with the star-campaigner in his vehicle or helicopter then the travel expenses should not be included in the election expenses of the candidate.

The EC has clarified that if any attendant, security guard or medical attendant of star campaigner or any member of the party, who is not a candidate in the constituency concerned, or any representative of electronic/print media travels with him, then travel expenses of such star campaigner will not be added to the account of candidate provided they do not play any role in election campaign of the candidate.

If the posters, banners, flags, stickers with photo or appeal of the star campaigners without any reference to any particular candidate are used during the elections, the expenditure should be booked to the account of the political party.

If however, the leader happens to be a candidate in any constituency, then the proportionate expenditure on such items, actually used in his constituency, should be accounted for in his election expenses, read the EC's guidelines on expenditure.

The upper limit for expenditure is fixed at Rs 14 lakh per candidate. The expenditure monitoring will come into effect from November 20.

As per the provisions, each candidate will have to open a separate bank account for making transactions of receipt and payment for election purposes and details of such account will have to be submitted to returning officers at the time of nomination.

To keep a check on expenditure, assistant expenditure observers will maintain a "shadow expenditure register" of each candidate for all expenditures made by candidates and the same would be compared with the expenditure register maintained by the candidates.

Image: Superstar Salman Khan campaigning for Congress MP Milind Deora in Mumbai ahead of the 2009 general elections

Photograph: Punit Paranjpe/Reuters