Unlike in the past, expenditure of candidates for the Manipur Assembly elections on January 28 would be closely monitored by the IT department, officials said today.

About 55 officials from the directorate of income tax would arrive here in the next few days to oversee expenditures of the candidates and to check excess expenditures.

Officials said the team would be divided in groups and deployed at all the district headquarters to do their monitoring work.

The authorities are also considering to question any candidate withdrawing more than Rs 1 lakh from his bank account.

Earlier, chief election commissioner S Y Qureshi had directed candidates to open new bank accounts for making all poll-related payments.

The tenth assembly polls in Manipur for 60 seats will be held on January 28 and the counting will be held on March 4.