Kodela denies election expenditure amount

The Speaker of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly, Dr Kodela Sivaprasad Rao, on Tuesday clarified that he did not say he had spent Rs 11 crore in the last assembly elections. It was true that he did say that the election expenditure was rising. Talking to the media in Guntur, Dr Sivaprasad asserted that he did not say that he had spent Rs 11 crores. He contested eight elections in his 3-decade political life. But he never violated the Election Commission guidelines. He had always submitted the election expenditure statement to the Election Commission. It was possible that his supporters in villages might have spent their monies. But they had not told him what amount they had spent. It is true he had agreed with the speakers that the election expenditure was rising. All the money that he had spent had been his hard-earned money. He said at yesterday's meet, he had responded to what other speakers had said. It is also true that the election expenditure rising was a bad sign.