TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Congress candidate Ravi Naik tops the list of spenders among the candidates who contested the April 12 Lok Sabha polls from North Goa.
He spent a tentative amount of Rs 9.91 lakh of the estimated Rs 30 lakh approximately spent by all candidates in north Goa.
All the seven candidates have filed their respective tentative expenditure till April 8 to the Returning Officer excluding expenses for April 9 and 10 when the campaigning came to an end. Goa went to the polls on April 12. A senior election officer said that 25 days will be given to candidates to file their final expenditure after the declaration of the results on May 16. These will be subsequently forwarded to Election Commission, New Delhi.
Three-time MP Shripad Naik of the BJP spent around Rs 7.70 lakh and Aam Admi Party (AAP) candidate Dr Dattaram Desai spent Rs 7.39 lakh, to log the third highest expenditure.
The officer disclosed that the expenditure covers ‘election advertisements’ in several media including TV-radio-newspaper advertisements, hoardings, rallies, canvassing and other forms of promotion during campaigning.
Goa Democratic Front candidate Dayanand Narvekar spent about Rs 4.06 lakh whereas two candidates’ expenses were below Rs 80,000. Samajwadi Janata Party-Rashtriya’s Raju D’Souza campaign expense is Rs 74,439 approx. Independent Mittu Mujavar came out as the lowest spender with a declaration of around Rs 44,700. The EC had fixed expenditure limit for each of the candidates at Rs 54 lakh warning not to exceed the limit as it would attract disqualification.
According to information furnished by the candidates to EC through an affidavit while filing the nomination reveals that 67-year-old Congress candidate has assets of approximately Rs 8 crore and liability of Rs 15.63 lakh in the form of loan to the public and government financial institutions.
Shripad Naik, has assets worth Rs 6.66 crore with a liability of Rs 8.33 lakh by way of dues to public financial institutions and government bodies.
