Press Release: Out of the 31 regional parties whose annual audit reports are available on the ECI website, 5 regional parties have declared receiving donations through Electoral Bonds amounting to a total of Rs 250.60 cr; The audit report of BJP for the FY 2020-21 is unavailable on the ECI website

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May 27, 2022, 4:33:20 AM5/27/22

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Press Release

Date: 27th May, 2022

Analysis of Income & Expenditure of Regional Political Parties for FY 2020-21

For the complete reports in English and Hindi with details of top three sources of income, top items of expenditure of the Regional Parties and the status of submission of their audit reports for FY 2020-21, kindly refer to the attachments.

To access the reports on the website, please go to: https://adrindia.org/content/analysis-income-and-expenditure-regional-political-parties-fy-2020-21-27th-may-2022

Executive Summary

Political parties have multiple sources of funding and thus accountability and transparency should be an important aspect of their functioning. It is essential to have comprehensive and transparent accounting methods and systems which should reveal the true financial position of the parties.

The Election Commission of India (ECI), in its letter dated 19^th November,’14 addressed to the Presidents/General Secretaries of all political parties, stated that it was mandatory for the parties to submit details of their audited reports to the Commission. This report analyses the total income and expenditure incurred, all over India, by 31 out of 54 Regional Parties during FY 2020-21, as declared by the parties in their IT Returns submitted to the ECI.

The Regional Parties include AAP, AGP, AIADMK, AIFB, AIMIM, AINRC, BJD, CPI(ML) (L), DMDK, DMK, GFP, JDS, JDU, JKPDP, JMM, KC-M, MGP, MNS, NDPP, NPF, PDA, PMK, RLD, SAD, SDF, SHS, SKM, TDP, TRS, YSR-C and ZNP.

Status of submission of audited reports by the Regional Parties, FY 2020-21

The due date for submission of annual audited accounts for the parties was 31st October,'21.
5 parties had submitted their audit reports on time, while 26 parties delayed their submission by several days, ranging from 1 day to 144 days.
Audit Reports of the remaining 23 Regional Parties for FY 2020-21 are unavailable on the website of the ECI at the time of preparation of this report. These include some major political parties like AJSU, RJD, SP, BPF, JKNC, and AIUDF etc.
Hence, this report analyses the income and expenditure of 31 Regional Political Parties, whose audit reports are available on the ECI website, for FY 2020-21.

Total income declared by Regional Political Parties, FY 2020-21

The total income of the 31 Regional Parties for the FY 2020-21 was Rs 529.416 cr.
DMK reported having the highest income of Rs 149.95 cr, which forms 28.324% of the total income of all the parties analysed, followed by YSR-Congress with an income of Rs 107.99 cr or 20.398% and BJD whose income was Rs 73.347 cr or 13.854% of the total income of the 31 Regional parties analysed in this report.
The total income of top 5 parties amounted to Rs 434.255 cr, which comprised 82.03% of the total income of the political parties analysed, collectively.

Comparison of Income of Regional Parties, FY 2019-20 and FY 2020-21

Out of a total of 29 parties from 31 political parties whose data is available for both the years, 10 parties have shown an increase in their income from FY 2019-20 to FY 2020-21 while 19 parties have shown a decline in their income during this period.
Total income of the 29 parties decreased from Rs 800.264 cr in FY 2019-20 to Rs 520.492 cr in FY 2020-21, a total decrease of 34.96% or Rs 279.775 cr.
DMK reported the highest increase in its income of Rs 85.046 cr followed by JDU and YSR-Congress which declared a total increase of Rs 41.956 cr and Rs 15.251 cr respectively, between FY 2019-20 and FY 2020-21.

Unspent Income of Regional Parties, FY 2020-21

There are 17 Regional parties who declared a part of their income as remaining unspent for the FY 2020-21 while 14 political parties spent more than the income collected during the year.
YSR-Congress has more than 99.25% of its total income remaining unspent while BJD and AIMIM have 90.44% and 88.02%, respectively, of their income remaining unspent for FY 2020-21.
DMK, AIADMK, TDP, JDS, CPI(ML)(L), PMK, SKM, JMM, RLD, AGP, ZNP, NPF, SDF and JKPDP are the 14 Regional parties that declared spending more than their income. TDP has declared spending the highest amount of Rs 51.517 cr or 1584.16% more than its income.

Total expenditure incurred by Regional Parties, FY 2020-21

The total declared expenditure of the 31 Regional parties for the FY 2020-21 was Rs 414.028 cr.
Total expenditure incurred by the top 5 parties is Rs 362.321 cr or 87.51% of the total expenditure as reported by the 31 political parties.
Top 5 parties that have incurred highest expenditure are DMK which had spent Rs 218.49 cr or 52.77%, followed by TDP which spent Rs 54.769 cr or 13.23%, AIADMK which spent Rs 42.367 cr or 10.23%, JDU which spent Rs 24.347 cr or 5.88% and TRS which spent Rs 22.348 cr or 5.40% of the total expenditure.

All sources of Income declared by Regional Political parties, FY 2020-21

31 Regional Parties collected Rs 376.865 cr or 71.19% of their total income from voluntary contributions (includes Donations & Contributions and Electoral Bonds) for FY 2020-21.
Under voluntary contributions, political parties collected 47.34% or Rs 250.60 cr of their income from Donations through Electoral Bonds while other Donations & Contributions amounted to Rs 126.265 cr or 23.85% for FY 2020-21.
Only 5 of the 31 Regional Parties that were analysed declared donations through Electoral Bonds amounting to Rs 250.60 cr.
15.99% or Rs 84.64 cr of the total income was generated through Interest Income by the 31 Regional Parties during FY 2020-21.

Observations of ADR

Audit reports of 26 parties were available on the ECI website after a delay of 1 day to 144 days from the last date of submission.
The income tax returns/audit reports of 23 Regional Parties are not available on the ECI website at the time of preparation of this report even after 208 days since the due date for submission.
Given the anonymity provided to donors by the scheme, it is seen that Electoral Bonds have emerged as the most popular mode of donations to Regional Political parties for FY 2020-21. More than 47.34% of the total income (Rs 250.60 cr) of the 31 Regional political parties analysed for FY 2020-21 is received from Donations through Electoral Bonds.
The most common and popular items of expenditure for regional parties for FY 2020-21 are election expenses/general propaganda and administrative/general expenses.
Janata Dal Secular (JDS) has declared membership fees and other fees under the Grants/donations/Contributions for FY 2020-21.
For the FY 2019-20, more than 62% of the total income of seven National Parties came from Donations through Electoral Bonds (Rs 2993.826 cr), wherein identity of the donor is not disclosed to the public. Of the Regional parties that have submitted their audit reports, 14 Regional Parties (TRS, TDP, YSR-C, BJD, DMK, SHS, AAP, JDU, SP, JDS, SAD, AIADMK, RJD & JMM) have declared receiving donations through Electoral Bonds worth Rs 447.498 cr, which is 50.97%.
As per the data shared by SBI in response to ADR’s RTI application, Electoral Bonds worth Rs 1019.73 cr were redeemed by parties in FY 2020-21. 5 Regional Parties (YSR-Congress- Rs 96.25 cr, DMK- Rs 80.00 cr, BJD- Rs 67.00 cr, AAP- Rs 5.95 cr and JDU- Rs 1.40 cr) have declared receiving donations through Electoral Bonds worth Rs 250.60 cr.
During FY 2020-21, out of the 31 Regional Parties, only JDS declared receiving a total income of Rs 4.6855 cr from Sale of Coupons.
Among the national parties, the audit report of BJP for the FY 2020-21 is unavailable on the ECI website at the time of preparation of this report.