Drugs, cash, liquor worth over Rs 1,760 crore seized in five poll-bound states: EC

While assembly polls have already been held in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram, voting will take place in Rajasthan and Telangana on November 25 and November 30 respectively.

New Delhi: The seizure of cash, liquor, drugs, precious metals, freebies and other items in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana and Mizoram so far has registered a whopping 636 per cent rise this year compared to 2018 when the assembly elections were held in the five states last time, according to the Election Commission.

The EC stated that cash, liquor, drugs, precious metals, freebies and other items worth Rs 1,760 crore were seized by different law enforcement agencies from the five states since the announcement of the schedule of polls on October 9 till Monday.

Mizoram and Madhya Pradesh went to polls on November 7 and 17 respectively to elect the new state assembly. The voters of Chhattisgarh exercised their franchise in two phases on November 7 and 17. Polling will take place in Rajasthan and Telangana on November 25 and 30 respectively.

The data released by the EC on Monday revealed that Telangana and Rajasthan topped in seizures of the items used as inducements to woo the voters in favour of particular candidates or political parties. The total value of the seized items in Rajasthan already crossed Rs 650 crore while it reached Rs 659.20 crore in Telangana.

The seizure figures from the ongoing elections in the five states and a few previous state assembly elections demonstrated the EC’s unwavering commitment to ensuring free, fair and inducement-free elections. The commission implemented robust measures to monitor inducements and curb electoral malpractices for a level playing field, a spokesperson of the poll panel said. He also referred to the seizures of items worth over Rs 1,400 crore ahead of the assembly elections in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Tripura and Karnataka earlier this year – 11 times more than the seizures in the states during the previous assembly elections.

“This time the Commission has also embedded technology into the monitoring process through the Election Expenditure Monitoring System (ESMS), which is proving to be a catalyst, as it brought a wide array of Central and State enforcement agencies together for better coordination and intelligence sharing,” the EC noted.