)
The Bharatiya Janata Party had decided not to pay a penny from the party fund to the ministers in the Raman Singh government contesting the ensuing assembly polls.
The ruling BJP had fielded all the 12 ministers besides chief minister Raman Singh to contest the state polls due next month. The election in the state would be held in two phases—on November 11 and November 19.
The party had been paying money from its fund to the official candidates contesting the election. However, the BJP had decided that it would not fund the party candidates who had held position in the Raman Singh cabinet. The ministers would have to bear the financial burden of their election expenses.
Meanwhile, each BJP candidate in Chhattisgarh would be entitled to get a sum of Rs 15 lakh for contesting the election. The money would be given to the candidates from the party fund. The election commission had set a limit of Rs 16 lakh that each candidate could spend while campaigning in the state assembly election.
A BJP spokesperson said it had been a tradition that the ministers would not be paid from the party fund to contest the election. Since the ministers had stayed for long in an important position, they would have to manage their election expenses.
The other candidates would get the amount in instalment. The party had released the first instalment of Rs 10 lakh to each eligible candidate while the remaining amount in the second instalment would be paid later.
As per the poll panel guidelines, the amount of the first instalment had been credited to the bank account of the candidates directly through the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) method. The candidates have been asked to furnish their bank details to the party office so that cash could be transferred to their account.
