EC suggests ceiling on expenditure by parties during elections

Like individuals, there should be a ceiling on expenditure made by political parties during polls, says an Election Commission draft document based on the 'general agreement' among participants who were part of a recent consultation on electoral reforms.
At present, while there is a ceiling on campaigning fund for individual candidates in electoral fray, there is no such cap on the money political parties can spend for electioneering.
The Election Commission today came out with a draft outcome paper based on the March 30 consultations on political finance and the latest Law Commission report on electoral reforms.
It said there was a "general agreement" among participants on fixation of a ceiling on party election expenditure, depending on number of candidates sponsored by them. The participants felt that details about the ceiling amount should be worked out by EC.

Thee was also a general agreement on providing "legal backing" for the provision requiring the candidates to open a separate bank account for election purposes and incur expenses from that account by way of cheque or bank transfer.
Most participants also felt that parties should also have separate bank accounts for the purpose of election campaign expense and incur election expenses only by bank transfer or cheque from the said accounts. This will help segregate parties' other non-campaign expense from the campaign expense.
On the issue of government advertisements, there was a general agreement that no government ads to be featured in party-owned media and that there should be no telecast of government ads six months before expiry of the tenure of the House -- state assembly or Lok Sabha.

But the outcome paper is silent on government advertisements in newspapers.