JORHAT: Among the eight contestants for the Jorhat Lok Sabha (LS) seat, BJP candidate, Topon Gogoi, has so far spent the highest amount of money on his campaign.
Until 1st April, Gogoi spent Rs 18 lacs on his canvassing as opposed to his main rival, Congress’s Sushanta Borgohain, who comes second with a spending of Rs 11 lac.
For the forthcoming election, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has set a limit of Rs 50 lacs and Rs 70 lacs for the candidates to spend on their campaigns. The limit, however, depends on the state he/she is contesting the LS polls from.
ECI has also been monitoring the bank accounts of the candidates to keep a tab on their monetary transactions by appointing "expenditure observers" across all the constituencies.
An official source from Jorhat DC office told G Plus, “We have to conduct three inspections to check the monetary expenses of the candidates. We have already completed two of them and the third is scheduled on 9th April.
“One of the eight candidates, Nandita Nag, did not turn up for the inspection, so we sent her a notice.”
The flying squad team of the Jorhat district administration, which was set up to implement the provisions of model code of conduct (MCC), had seized Rs 96,500 in cash on 6th April near JEC road, Jorhat. The team that made the seizure was headed by Inspector of Taxes, Moni Rani Kalita.
It was the first seizure of its kind recorded in the Jorhat legislative assembly constituencies (LAC) since the commencement of MCC across the state.
Previously, the election observer seized a cash amount of Rs 30 lacs in Sibsagar LAC, which falls under the Jorhat LS constituency.
Apart from cash, 994 cartons of LED bulbs containing 95,000 bulbs were seized in the Jorhat LAC by the flying squad team.
The Jorhat LS constituency has a total of 13,60,328 voters including 68,9038 male, 67,1283 and 7 third gender voters.
It comprises ten LACs, Jorhat, Teok, Titabor, Mariani, Amguri, Thowra, Sibsagar, Nazira, Mahmara, and Sonari.
In the last assembly election held in 2016, a total of 36,175 first time voters were registered in the Jorhat constituency. The constituency saw the registration of 15,810 first time voters between September 2018 and February 2019.