As electioneering heats up in Tamil Nadu, party sources claim that spending on campaign activities has risen sharply, touching nearly Rs 500 crore a day.
According to these sources, an Assembly constituency typically has around 300 polling booths, each covering up to about 1,000 voters. Candidates from the DMK and AIADMK are said to be focusing on securing at least 200 votes per booth, believing higher numbers can help lock in victory.
To run booth-level work such as distributing pamphlets and taking out flag-bearing processions, local functionaries are said to deploy at least 200 workers per booth. Each worker is reportedly paid about Rs 200 per day, taking the daily cost per booth to roughly Rs 75,000.
At that rate, a constituency could spend about Rs 2.25 crore per day across 300 booths. Extrapolating this to around 200 constituencies out of the state’s 234, the total daily outlay is estimated at about Rs 450 crore, which sources round off to around Rs 500 crore.
The same sources add that parties prefer cash payments for such work, fearing that digital transactions could be tracked by the Election Commission and lead to complications.
