Poll expenses found ‘crossing’ ₹70L limit, Sunny gets notice

Thursday, 20/06/2019

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Pathankot Bollywood actor and Gurdaspur BJP MP Sunny Deol has been asked to explain his poll expenditure during the recent Lok Sabha elections after it was found to have crossed the statutory limit of ₹70 lakh, an official said on Wednesday.

The notice to Deol to “reconcile” his poll expenditure account was issued by Gurdaspur district election officer-cum-deputy commissioner Vipul Ujjwal. For Lok Sabha candidates, the statutory poll expenditure limit has been fixed at ₹70 lakh. “His poll expenditure was found to be more than ₹70 lakh limit,” said Ujjwal.

Deol was elected MP from Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat. He defeated Congress nominee Sunil Jakhar with a margin of 82,459 votes.

BJP statistics handlers, who looked after the expenses of Deol during his elections, said they have received the notice but have claimed that they were in process to calculate it at their end after which they would reply to the notice.

As per information, two expenditure observers were keeping tabs on the candidates in both Pathankot and Gurdaspur revenue districts.

Anil Vasudeva, who is mayor of Pathankot MC and also a CA who looked after Sunny’s paper filing, said they would match the expenses with the list of the observers to reach at a final conclusion.

Though Ujjwal refused to comment on the election expenditure figure, official sources said as per preliminary calculations, Deol’s poll expenditure was found to be ₹86 lakh. Ujjwal said the amount of Deol’s poll expenditure was not a “final” figure.

“We have issued a notice to him (Deol) for reconciliation of accounts and the final figure of the poll expenditure will be known only after the reconciliation and settlement of the accounts,” he said. “It is too early to comment on the overspending right now,” added Ujjwal.

Deol’s poll expenditure was found to be in excess of the limit among all other candidates in the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha constituency, officials said. The reconciliation of accounts is likely to continue till June 22 and 23.

Ujjwal further said after the elections, every candidate was issued notice for the reconciliation of their accounts. “It is a normal statutory notice,” he added.

Earlier on May 15, the Election Commission had issued directions for adding ₹1.74 lakh to Deol’s poll expenditure after he failed to respond to its query about a Facebook page being run in his support.

The order had come on a complaint by the Punjab Congress, which claimed the Facebook page, ‘Fans of Sunny Deol’, was being run without any prior permission of the poll watchdog.