Trichy: Information on bank accounts furnished in the affidavits of candidates will be a crucial link for election officials to track financial transactions of the contenders. Transactions through online banking in cooperative banks will also be under surveillance.
This is seen as a yet another effort by the election commission of India (ECI) to ensure a fair election. District election officer (DEO) S Palanisamy conveyed the message of the ECI to officers of all banks functioning under cooperative societies across the district.
Transaction from bank accounts of candidates and their spouses as well as their dependents through real-time gross settlement (RTGS) or national electronic funds transfer (NEFT) will be closely monitored.
"The banks should prepare a list of accounts, which were idle before the past two months, but is now active with transactions of Rs 1 lakh and above during the election period under abnormal and suspicious circumstances. Further, the banks should bring all transactions through RTGS and NEFT in this period under the watch," said collector-cum-DEO Palanisamy at a meeting with cooperative bankers.
The bankers were told to monitor the accounts of the candidates and their dependents if there was any transaction above Rs 1 lakh.
They were advised to take the account numbers from the affidavits filed by the candidates, which were available on the website of the chief electoral officer of Tamil Nadu.
The affidavits of the candidates are made available to the public on the website http://tnnominations.azurewebsites.net/webform. In case of any suspicious movement of cash, it should be informed to the income tax department officials.
Further, the banks were asked to monitor transactions of Rs 10 lakh and above. Information about such transaction should be passed on to the district election expenditure monitoring committee on paactry@gmail.com. If there is no such big cash transaction, the bank should submit a 'nil' report.