Hyderabad: Forum For Good Governance (FFGG) general secretary Padmanabh Reddy on Friday, December 5, wrote to the Telangana Chief Electoral Officer seeking an audit of the expenditure incurred for the Jubilee Hills by-election held last month.
Claiming that Rs 591.60 lakhs was spent by the election authorities for the by election, the FFGG member stated that the amount is “abnormally high”. The Jubilee Hills by election result was announced on November 14. The ruling Congress won the seat after a high stakes election, beating the main opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS).
It was necessitated after the late BRS MLA Maganti Gopinath passed away earlier this year. Locan strongman Naveen Yadav beat BRS candidate and Gopinath’s wife Sunitha to win the Jubilee Hills by election.
In the aftermath, the FFGG general secretary told the Chief Electoral Officer that the organisations suspects that a “lot of wasteful expenditure was incurred” for it. “We would like to bring to the notice of Chief Electoral Officer the following points. 1. For conduct of election no new staff was recruited nor any vehicles purchased. 2. There is no mass movement of staff from far off places to conduct elections. 3. Jubilee hills is not an extremist effected area requiring heavy deployment of paramilitary forces. 4. It is an Urban constituency located in the heart of Hyderabad city,” Padmanabh Reddy stated.
He added that as a general practice election expenditure is not audited and that the expenditure incurred for the Jubilee Hills by election was more than requirement as such needs audit of accounts. “Keeping all these factors in view we feel expenditure of Rs. 591.60 lakhs to conduct Jubilee hills Assembly constituency polls is very high,” the FFGG general secretary stated in his letter.
Adding that the money for it is is provided by state government (tax payer’s money), Forum for Good Governance requested the Chief Electoral Officer of Telangana to order for audit on the expenditure incurred for conduct of Jubilee hills by-poll.
