Bengaluru, February 5: Now it is final after all the calculation. The cost of electing an MLA is Rs 2.20 crores and that of 224-strong Assembly is a whopping Rs 511 Crores.
This is the estimation made by the Election Commission of India. The elections to Karnataka Assembly are slated to be held in April-May.
In the 2018 Assembly elections, the Election Commission had spent a total of Rs 394 crores, that means an average of Rs 1.75 Crore per each constituency.
In 2013, the total expenditure was Rs 160 crores with Rs 65 lakhs for each constituency.
“With price rise and inflation, the cost of poll machinery and infrastructural cost, the cost of conducting polls keep going up,” Manoj Kumar Meena says.
The expenses depends upon the size of the constituency but this time it would be slightly more than Rs 2 crores per constituency.
This estimation does not cover the repoll or bye-poll, says Meena.
The cost of security arrangements is borne by the state government through the Police Department.
Various components of the total expenses include printing of EPIC cards, electoral rolls, awareness campaigns and remuneration for polling personnel.
The state government had earmarked Rs 300 crores in the supplementary budget in December last year. The rest will be allotted in the coming budget.
The ECI has planned awareness drives including demonstrations of EVMs and VVPATs in order to ensure fairness in conducting the elections.
