<span style="color: #212529;">The process of Assembly polls for Uttar Pradesh is going to begin with the issuance of notification for the First Phase on Friday. Uttar Pradesh will go to polls in seven phases from 10th of February to 7th of March. Polling for Punjab, Uttarakhand and Goa will be held on 14th of February in single phase. Manipur will vote on 27th of February and 3rd of March in two phases. The counting of votes will be taken up together on 10th of March. A total of 690 Assembly Constituencies in Goa, Manipur, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh will go to polls this time. A total 18 crore 34 lakh electors will take part in this election out of which eight crore 55 lakh are women.<br />”&nbsp;<br />”In this context, it may be mentioned that the Ministry of Law and Justice has recently enhanced the existing election expenditure limit for candidates in Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies on the recommendations of Election Commission. These limits will be applicable in all upcoming elections. In case of a Parliamentary Constituency, the ceiling on poll expenditure for a candidate has been raised from 70 to 95 lakh rupees in bigger states and 54 to 75 lakh rupees in smaller states. For Assembly constituencies, the expenditure limit has been enhanced from 28 to 40 lakh rupees in bigger states and from 20 to 28 lakhs in smaller states. Last major revision in the election expenditure limit was carried out in 2014, which was further increased by 10 per cent in 2020.<br />”&nbsp;<br />”As per revised limits, pertinent to the Assembly Elections in five poll-bound states, the limit on candidate expenditure for the states of Punjab, Uttarakhand and UP will now be 40 lakh rupees and for Goa and Manipur, it will be 28 lakh rupees. Comprehensive instructions for the purpose of effective monitoring of the election expenditure of the candidates have been issued, which include formation of Flying Squads (FS), Static Surveillance Teams (SST), Video Surveillance Teams (VST), involvement of State Police, Investigation Directorate of Income Tax Department, Enforcement Directorate, Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU-IND), DRI, RPF, CBIC, SSB, ICG, Commercial Tax Department and Narcotics Control Bureau.<br />”&nbsp;<br />”State Excise Department has been asked to monitor production, distribution, sale and storage of liquor and inducements in the form of free goods during the election process. The functioning and operations of the Flying Squads/Mobile Teams will be closely monitored using GPS Tracking and the c-VIGIL App. For greater transparency and for ease of monitoring of Election Expenses, candidates would be required to open a separate bank account and incur their election expenses from only that account. The Investigation Directorate of Income Tax Department has been asked to activate Air Intelligence Units in the airports of the state and also to gather intelligence and take necessary action to check movement of large sums of money in Goa, Manipur, Punjab Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.<br />”&nbsp;<br />”Some new initiatives taken by the Election Commission to strengthen the Expenditure Monitoring Mechanism include Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for seizure and release of cash, Accounting of the expenditure incurred for campaign vehicles, Account Reconciliation Meeting, Accounting of Expenditure on publicity of criminal antecedents. In addition, the Expenditure incurred on candidates' Booth/(Kiosk) and on Television, Cable Channel or Newspaper owned by party for promoting the electoral prospects of the candidate will be monitored along with the Final Accounts by Political Parties.<br />”&nbsp;</span><br />”<span style="color: #222222;">All Political Parties sponsoring candidates for the Legislative Assembly elections are required to maintain day-to-day accounts of all election campaign expenses and submit the final accounts to the Commission/CEO within 75 days of the completion of such election.<br />”<br />”Such accounts will be uploaded on the website of the Commission for public viewing. For the sake of transparency and reconciliation of accounts of political parties and candidates, the political parties have to file a part Election Expenditure statement in addition to the final statement of election expenditure in respect of lump-sum payments made by the party to the candidate within 30 days after declaration of election results of Legislative Assemblies.</span><br />