(Image source from: thestar.com)

The 2019 Lok Sabha elections could be most expensive election ever in the world, a US-based expert has said.

The Election Commission of India is expected to announce the schedule of the Lok Sabha elections in first or second week of next month.

Milan Vasihnav, senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think-thank told PTI “The combined US presidential and congressional elections in 2016 cost USD 6.5 billion. If the 2014 Lok Sabha elections cost an estimated USD 5 billion, there is little doubt the 2019 election will easily surpass that - making India's elections the world's most expensive.”

"The uncertainty associated with the coming election -polls suggest a narrowing gap between the BJP and the opposition - only provides more fodder for an arms race in spending," he said

Vaishnav has emerged as an influential voice on Indian elections, in particular the funding aspects of it, over the years.

"While the outcome of the next general election is up in the air, one attribute about it is already well known: it will be the most expensive general election in Indian history and perhaps one of the most expensive ever held in any democratic society,” Vaishnav wrote in an op-ed for Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a top American think-tank.Noting that the 2014 general elections costed USD 5 billion, Vaishnav said it was not inconceivable that overall expenditure will double again this year.

“The exorbitant cost of Indian elections has become a cardinal fact of the Indian political economy that is widely acknowledged and lamented - including by politicians and their donors. But it is not simply the material outlays that grab one's attention, it is the manner in which the money flows,” he said.

Milan Vaishnav said it is almost impossible to determine who donated the money to which party or politician.

He said that the system lacks transparency though government brought electoral bond. He feels very few donors are willing to disclose the details.

-Sai Kumar