Haryana MC Poll: Candidates to maintain expenditure account

The State Election Commission (SEC) of Haryana has directed that all contesting candidates in the ensuing Municipal Corporation and Municipal Committees polls are required to maintain account of election expenditure and submit the details within 30 days from the date of declaration of the result of the election to the Deputy Commissioner or an officer authorized by the SEC, failing which the defaulting candidate will be liable to be disqualified under Section 8E of the Haryana Municipal Corporation Act, 1994 and Haryana Municipal Corporation Election Expenditure (Maintenance and submission of accounts), Order, 2018, for a period of five years.

While stating this here on Saturday, a spokesman of the SEC said in a statement that the Commission has announced schedule for general elections in five Municipal Corporations and two Municipal committees in the state on November 22, 2018. Polling in these municipal institutions would be held on December 16, 2018. The general elections of seats of Mayor and Members of all wards of five municipal corporations including Hisar, Rohtak, Yamuna Nagar, Panipat and Karnal and of two municipal committees including Jakhal Mandi in Fatehabad district and Pundri in Kaithal would be held on December 16, 2018.

He said that for first time in Haryana, eligible electors of the corporations would elect their Mayor through direct casting of votes whereas earlier Mayor was elected by the elected members of the corporation from among themselves. The Deputy Commissioner or an officer authorized by the SEC would check the account of election expenses and send a list of contesting candidates, who have filed and who not filed the election expenditure statement, to the Commission within a period of seven days from the completion of prescribed time limit of 30 days.

The spokesman said that the expenditure limit for contesting the election of Mayor has been fixed up to Rs 20 lakh whereas it is Rs 5 lakh for the member of Municipal Corporation and Rs 2 lakh for the member of municipal committee respectively. All the contesting candidates are required to maintain account of election expenditure and submit the same within 30 days from the date of declaration of election result to the Deputy Commissioner or an officer authorized by the SEC, failing which the defaulting candidate would be liable to be disqualified for a period of five years.