Rs. 110 Cr worth seizures in just 8 days of Telangana polls announcement, almost equal to total in 2018 polls

The Telangana Assembly Elections-2023 is indeed turning out to be a costly affair. The enforcement agencies that sprung into action since the announcement of the election schedule on October 9 have seized cash, liquor, gold or silver and other valuables worth Rs. 109.11 crore in less than 10 days.

Of the total seizures, cash amounted to Rs. 58.96 crore and 44,093 litres of liquor, black jaggery and other material valued at Rs. 6.64 crore. Drugs or narcotics including 1,133 kgs of ganja estimated around Rs. 2.97 crore formed part of the seizures in little over a week after the announcement of the election schedule.

This is in addition to precious metals like gold and silver worth Rs. 33.62 crore. Other freebies like laptops, rice, sarees, cookers valued at Rs. 6.89 crore were also seized during the same period, according to the State election authority, the office of the Chief Electoral Officer. The seizure has been much higher as compared with the previous elections in 2018 when the total unaccounted cash and illegal goods worth about Rs. 111 crore were seized between October 6 and the election day December 7.

The seizures including cash and valuables during the 2014 elections in the erstwhile united State were around Rs. 76 crore. CEO Vikas Raj, in a recent interaction with The Hindu, expressed concern that “so much moving around is something that should not be there”. According to him, the focus should primarily be on enforcement or lack of it. The efforts of the election authority were paying off as could be seen from the way in which violators were being apprehended.