The Congress on Friday asked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to disclose the sources of its election funding after a report by a think tank claimed that the ruling party spent nearly ₹27,000 crore out of a total of ₹60,000 crore spent in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.

The principal Opposition party also demanded a white paper on the excessive commercialisation of elections and how the government planned to tackle it.

“The BJP’s strategy is money, money and more money..Without a level playing field, you cannot have fair, independent, objective, non-partisan elections. And if you cannot have fair elections, then you cannot have democracy,” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told reporters.

“According to a recent report by an independent think tank Centre for Media Studies (CMS), the BJP spent close to ₹27,000 crore. This is 45% of the total expenditure which is estimated to close to ₹60,000 crore,” he said.

“The BJP’s spending in Lok Sabha Elections 2019 is equal to 30% of India’s education budget, 43% of India’s Health Budget, 10% of India’s Defence Budget and 45% of MGNREGA Budget,” he added.

Mr. Singhvi said the amount of election expenditure has gone up nearly six times from ₹9,000-10,000 crore in 1998 to ₹55,000-60,000 in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The report — based on secondary information, field studies and analysis — calculated that ₹700 was spent per voter and roughly ₹100 crore was spent for each parliamentary constituency.

The Congress also alleged that electoral bonds have added to the opaqueness surrounding election funding and demanded a white paper on tackling commercialisation of elections. The party also demanded setting up of a National Election Fund from which recognised political parties will be paid in accordance with criteria laid down by law.

Asked if the Congress could verify the amount of election expenditure mentioned in the report that estimated Congress spent 15-20% of the ₹60,000 crore, he said,“I rely on a published research report by a non-political independent organisation. This is a figure arrived at after research...Certainly, if the party in power discloses the details, every other party will definitely disclose the figures.”