Report: Gujarat BJP spent 210cr on 2022 assembly polls

In its filing of election expenditure details with the Election Commission of India (ECI), the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said it spent Rs 209.97 crore on the Gujarat assembly election in December last year. 

During the 2017 assembly election the party had spent Rs 111 crore.

The Gujarat BJP also told the ECI that the bulk of its 2022 expenditure was on rallies and the travel of star campaigners, printing of publicity material and other general propaganda activities.

The state BJP informed the ECI that it has a corpus of Rs 757.41 crore. 

A bank balance of Rs 313.25 crore, Rs 414.92 crore in deposits with banks and Rs 29.23 crore as cash in hand. 

In the mandatory expenditure report sent to the ECI last month, the Gujarat BJP said Rs 209.97 crore was spent on the 2022 assembly election.

Rs 46.20 crore was spent on candidates. Of this, Rs 40 crore was paid to candidates in the fray for election expenses, the party said in its filing. 

A sum of Rs 5.15 crore was spent on publicising criminal antecedents of candidates. 

The Gujarat unit of the Congress party spent a total of Rs 47.19 crore on its campaign for the December 2022 assembly election. 

Of this, Rs 13.76 lakh was spent on the travel of star campaigners, Rs 61.56 lakh on public meetings and rallies and Rs 45.35 crore was given in lump sum payments to the party's candidates.