By A Correspondent

The 2019 Parliamentary Elections in India is estimated to be the most expensive elections held, ever. The front-end expenditure of this election spread over seven phases and 75 days, is estimated as INR 60 thousand crore.  These are estimated by the Centre for Media Studies (CMS), a leading research organisation, which has been tracking elections in India and estimating expenditure incurred. CMS had earlier estimated the expenditure of the 2014 elections as Rs 30,000 crore. CMS is also known for its annual studies on corruption (India Corruption Studies) based on its unique PEE (perception, experience & estimation) model.

The report has a foreword by Dr S Y Quraishi, former Chief Election Commissioner of India, who says: “We cannot expect to see the next election any better than 2019 in terms of freeness, fairness and transparency, if the rising tide of criminalisation of politics and overarching influence of money in politics isn’t stemmed”.

The report, based on secondary information, field studies and analysis,  estimates that Rs.700 per vote was spent in 2019 elections.  This report brings out that on an average, nearly Rs. 100 crores per Lok Sabha constituency has been spent in these elections. It also gives examples of some constituencies which had higher candidate expenditure (more than 40 crore) within respective states.