New Delhi, Dec 15 (PTI) Imposing a limit on election expenditure is the most important electoral reforms needed, Biju Janata Dal MP Debashish Samantaray said on Monday as the Rajya Sabha resumed a debate on electoral reforms.
Participating in the discussion, Samantaray said election expenditure is something nobody talks about.
“…no one has spoken about election expenditure. I have fought five elections, within 14 days, the amount spent by a candidate is something obnoxious. Though there is a rule, a limitation to spending, everybody knows it is not true… You spend in crores,” he said.
“Spending so much money, there is all chances of corruption for recovering money spent on election. For election reform, this should be considered. Not everyone has so much money to fight election,” he said.
P P Suneer of the CPI said the distortion of the electoral process strikes at the root of parliamentary democracy, as he also demanded for curbing election expenditure.
Referring to the recent SIR conducted in Bihar, he said the electoral roll revision exercise has caused a “grave threat”.
“What should have been a transparent and citizen-friendly exercise has instead become an ordeal. In Bihar, lakhs of votes were deleted during the process, and shockingly over three lakh voters were added after the Election Commission declared the final electoral roll on 13th September 2025,” he said.
“This alone raises serious questions about the credibility, intent and scientific basis of this exercise,” he said, adding that the SIR has become a nightmare for citizens and election workers alike.
He further recommended imposing a cap on election expenditure.
“Curb the role of money in politics through strict enforcement of expenditure limits, and by introducing state funding of elections as recommended by the Indrajeet Gupta Committee,” he said.
He also called for strengthening laws against criminalisation of politics, and demanded barring candidates with serious charges, especially those of heinous crimes and hate speech, from contesting elections until cleared by courts.
BJD member Sasmit Patra also recommended electoral reforms, including real-time booth data publication and authentication.
He recommended a harmonised reconciliation system for simultaneous polls, standardised reporting of extended hour polling percentages, automatic sharing of Form 17C and turnout records with all political parties concerned.
He also said that full VVPAT-EVM matching at every booth should be done to create verifiable trust, and time-bound disposal of election representation and objections should be done.
He also suggested independent third-party audits of critical election processes, pre-declared border management and inter-state coordination in sensitive constituencies, strengthened training and monitoring for polling personnel to uphold voter secrecy and procedural discipline and creation of an integrated election transparency dashboard.
Ujjwal Nikam of the BJP called the SIR a significant step towards ensuring transparency and accountability.
“Electoral reforms like SIR address several long-standing procedural gaps that have often led to ambiguity, delays, and inconsistency,” he said.
He accused opposition parties of spreading fear by alleging vote theft.
“The opposition parties are questioning the efficacy of this intensive revision. They are deliberately spreading fear by branding SIR as a vote theft. This is their attempt to undermine the trust in the Election Commission,” he alleged. PTI AO HVA
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