The Manipur Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) on Sunday hit out at Chief Minister N Biren Singh for his alleged statement about huge expenses during election in of the public gathering recently and has called on the concerned authorities to take action. The committee also warned of legal action if the authorities failed to take action on their demand.

Addressing media during a press conference at Congress Bhawan, general secretary of MPCC, P Saratchandra said that even as the people have been criticising the BJP for use of money power and muscle during the recently concluded 12^th Manipur State Assembly Election, CM Biren openly shared about spending huge amount of money during the election. The statement is very unfortunate and it shows the level of unfair means used by the BJP to grab power, he stated.

“According to the norms of Election Commission of India, each candidate can spend only Rs 28 lakh in an election. However, in the statement made by the chief minister, he boldly mentioned investing crores of rupees. This shows that most of the candidates violated the rules of ECI. Considering the comment of the chief minister, it is high time to cross check the expenditures the MLAs used in election and take stringent action,” he demanded. He also said that if the authorities concerned failed to comply with their demand, legal action would be taken up to disqualify candidates who violate the ECI norms.

He further said that the chief minister not only mentioned spending money in elections but also shared his suggestion to his colleagues about recollecting invested money by taking up big projects in collaboration with major companies. BJP MLAs may accept such a strategy of recollecting back the expenses money; however, the Congress MLAs will never ever favour such an initiative, he said.

“Our expectations from his government are so high as they made tall promises to bring prosperity in the state. But unfortunately, instead of focusing on revenue generation for the state, they are focusing on how to earn back their invested money. How will they bring change in the state then?” he questioned.