The Rajya Sabha on Friday took up a private member's Bill on amending the Representation of the People's Act, 1951, and removal of caps on electoral expenditure by candidates contesting polls.
Congress member M V Rajeev Gowda moved the Bill further to amend the Representation of the People's Act, 1951.
He said the problem lies in an idealistic clause which is turning out to be counter productive in reality.
"So how do we change this, I also suggest that along with going out there and getting rid of election expenditure limits, we should also make it possible to introduce cleaner funding into the larger political process," Gowda said.
To do this, he suggested a National Election Fund having two components, with the first half of the amount being set aside and given to political parties based on their previous historical election performance, and the second half being allocated towards encouragement of newer parties.
Gowda also made a reference to a recent report by Centre for Media Studies which claimed that Rs 60,000 crore was the total election expenditure incurred by various political parties in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, out of which 45 per cent or nearly Rs 27,000 crore was spent by the BJP alone.
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He urged Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to go ahead and ensure that the Representation of the People's Act, 1951, is amended.
Speaking on the bill, BJP's Vinay P Saharsabuddhe said the proposal to remove limits on poll expenditure was an abject surrender to those with money power and will be a kind of "material populism". He said once the poll spend limit is removed, the poor will be unable to contest elections.
Participating in the debate, Manoj Kumar Jha (RJD) said elections were getting costlier day by day and is out of the reach of common man.
Shiv Pratap Shukla (BJP) said earlier the whole country could see elections accomplished in Rs 10 lakh but the same has risen to much higher levels.
He, however, added that leaders should imbibe political character and also lauded intervention of the courts in checking exit polls before elections and paid news.
A candidate contesting Lok Sabha polls can spend upto Rs 70 lakh, depending on the state they are contesting the poll from.
Expenditure limit for candidates contesting Assembly Elections in bigger states is set at Rs 28 lakh while it is kept at Rs 20 lakh for smaller states.
The law prescribes that total election expenditure shall not exceed the maximum limit prescribed under Rule 90 of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961.