The Election Commission of India (ECI) has asked the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) to submit within three months details of its expenses on the rallies of its president Raj Thackeray during the Lok Sabha polls.
As per the EC’s guidelines, every registered political party has to file its accounts of election expenses within 90 days after the completion of the election process. Dilip Shinde, Additional Chief Electoral Officer of Maharashtra, said, “According to the EC’s rules, participating political parties have to submit their election expense details. Even if a party does not contest the polls and only campaigns, it is still bound to file expense details.”
An election official said the notice for submission of election expenditure was issued after consultations with the Election Commission following a complaint from the BJP. The party had written to the State’s Chief Electoral Officer demanding that the expenses of Mr. Thackeray’s campaign rallies be added to the accounts of the Congress-NCP candidates who were in the fray in the nine Lok Sabha constituencies against the BJP-Sena nominees. The election official said this could have been done if Mr. Thackeray had sought votes for the Congress-NCP candidates in his speeches.
The official said, “We sought guidance regarding the complaint and were told that the MNS is a registered political party and should give details of the expenses incurred on its rallies. The notices to this effect are being sent to Mr. Thackeray through district collectors of the areas where he addressed the rallies.”
Direct attack
Though the MNS is not contesting the Lok Sabha elections, Mr. Thackeray held nine rallies in the State last month, in which he attacked the BJP governments at the Centre and in the State and asked people not to vote for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah.
In 2011, Mr. Thackeray praised Mr. Modi’s government in Gujarat. However, this year, he played video clips of the Prime Minister making contradictory statements in his speeches at election rallies.