ECI convenes meeting of Multi-Departmental Committee on election intelligence

Heads of Tax Boards, Law enforcement agencies, Central Paramilitary Forces and representatives of Financial Institutions attended the meeting.

Addressing the meeting, Chief Election Commissioner Arora said it is the constitutional mandate of the Election Commission of India to conduct free and fair elections. Conducting clean elections is now one of the biggest challenges in our democracy given the prevalent abuse of money power, particularly when it manifests in inducement of voters. 

He said Commission is determined to curb this menace and has issued detailed guidelines to monitor election expenditure incurred by candidates and political parties. The expenditure monitoring mechanism has got stronger over a period of time and larger seizures have been made by our enforcement teams in successive elections.

Arora said individually and collectively the agencies participating in the meeting are the bulwarks of clean elections. The outcome of synergised action should exceed the commitments made.

Election Commissioner Lavasa pointed out that the implementation on the field, of instructions of the Commission, requires co-ordination among the various expenditure monitoring teams and the agencies tasked with enforcement.  Sharing of Intelligence amongst the agencies should ensure that there is a concerted attack on problems faced.

He noted that multidimensional, multi-fanged crime needs to be tackled with coordinated action.

He reminded the agencies that due follow-up action on seizures done in previous MCC phase should see demonstrative action against antisocial elements enough to feel deterred next time. He emphasised that mischief mongers are ever devising more ingenious ways to beat the system.

Election Commissioner Chandra highlighted that election expenditure monitoring mechanism with its two thrust areas of keeping track of the legal expenditure incurred by candidates and political parties for election campaigns, and more importantly, ensuring that there is no illegal use of money and other items for buying of votes, is vital to ensure clean elections.

Use of money during the elections has increased by leaps and bounds in recent times and therefore there is greater need to have synergy amongst various enforcement agencies so that a collective strategy is developed to fight this menace. 

The Commission desires that all enforcement agencies should have proper sharing of information for taking coordinated action rather than working in silos.