Most political parties today favoured raising the ceiling for Lok Sabha election expenditure, arguing that steep inflation has made the current slab of Rs 16-40 lakhs infeasible.
The meeting called by the Election Commission to take views of the parties before it comes out with details also saw most political parties opposing any move to bring election manifestos under the Model Code of Conduct.
"BJP is for taking into account the rising cost of everything over the years," party leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told reporters after the meeting.
CPM, JD(U) and other regional parties also pushed for the raising the expenditure cap. Though Congress representatives, who attended the meeting were not available for comment, sources said they spoke in support of raising the cap.
"You look at it this way. One Lok Sabha seat has on average five Assembly seats and the limit for Assembly poll expenditure is Rs 16 lakh. So there should be an increase," Javed Raza of JD(U) said. CPM also supported appropriate increase.
However, Aam Aadmi Party said it was happy with the current limits.
"We kept our expenditure in Delhi Assembly polls under limit. We did well. We think the expenditure slab for Lok Sabha polls is appropriate and political parties can fight elections adhering to the limit," Pankaj Gupta of AAP said.
BJP urged the commission to complete elections in as few phases as possible and argued against holding polls in May in big states like UP and Bihar where weather would become very hot. It will result in low polling percentage and hurt the EC's campaign for higher turnout, Naqvi said.
Many parties like BJP and JD(U) were also against including manifestos in the Model Code of Conduct while CPI said freebies should be banned as they are nothing but allurement for voters.
