Assembly Election 2021: The Election Commission on Tuesday informed that it had made a record seizures of Rs 947.98 crore from the five states that went to polls as on April 6. Four states — Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal — and Union Territory of Puducherry went to polls on Tuesday. Elections in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry were held in a single phase on April 6. Assam went to polls in three phases, the final phase was on Tuesday. West Bengal is the only state where elections are being held in eight phases — voting for three phases have completed, the final phase will take place on April 29.
After polling ended in 475 constituencies on Tuesday, the Election Commission informed that it had made record seizures of nearly Rs 950 crore from the five states till April 6. The seizure figure, which includes seizure of cash, liquor, narcotics, freebies, is over 4.198 times higher than the total combined seizure of Rs 225.77 crore in general election of last assembly in 2016.
The Election Commission said that it had been laying specific emphasis on inducement free elections and curbing the malaise of undue money power, liquor, and freebies. For effective monitoring, the commission said, a total 4606 flying squads and 4670 static surveillance teams deployed to check movement of cash, liquor, drugs and freebies in the five states.
Besides these, a total 19 air intelligence units of the Income Tax department were also set at different stations in Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Tamil Nadu topped the chart in terms of cash seizure (Rs 236 crore), followed by West Bengal (Rs 40.27 crore), Assam (Rs 26.69 crore), Kerala (Rs 22.64 crore) and Puducherry (Rs 5.45 crore).
For precious metal, Tamil Nadu again topped the list with seizure worth Rs 176.22 crore. Kerala came in second at Rs 49.21 crore, Puducherry Rs 27.42 crore, West Bengal Rs 10.28 crore and Assam Rs 3.69 crore.
