Press Release: Audit reports of 20 regional parties for FY 2023-24 are unavailable on the website of the ECI at the time of preparation of this report even after a delay of 313 days. The total income of the 40 Regional Parties for the FY 2023-24 was Rs 2532.096 cr. BRS reported having the highest income of Rs 685.5177 cr

13 views

Skip to first unread message

ADR India

unread,

Sep 10, 2025, 3:34:21 AM (yesterday) Sep 10

to national...@googlegroups.com, national-el...@googlegroups.com

Press Release

Date: 10th September, 2025

Analysis of Income & Expenditure of Regional Political Parties for FY 2023-24

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 2023-24, kindly access the reports on the website: https://adrindia.org/content/Analysis-of-Income-and-Expenditure-of-Regional-Parties-FY-2023-24

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 audit reports to the Commission.

This report analyses the total income and expenditure incurred, all over India, by 40 out of the 60 Regional Parties during FY 2023-24, as declared by the parties in their audit reports submitted to the ECI. The Regional Parties include Apna Dal (Soneylal), AIFB, AINRC, AIADMK, AIMIM, AIUDF, AJSU Party, AGP, BJD, BRS, CPI, CPI(ML)(L), DMK, DMDK, GFP, INLD, JD(S), JD(U), JJP, JKPDP, JMM, KC(M), LJP (Ram Vilas), MGP, MNS, MNF, NDPP, NPF, PPA, Rashtriya Loktantrik Party, Revolutionary Goans Party, SAD, SDF, SKM, SP, TDP, TMP, YSR Congress, and ZPM.

Status of submission of audited reports by the Regional Parties, FY 2023-24

The due date for submission of annual audited accounts for the parties was 31st October,'24.
20 parties had submitted their audit reports on time, while 20 parties delayed their submission by several days, ranging from 12 days to 216 days.
Audit reports of the remaining 20 regional parties for FY 2023-24 are unavailable on the website of the ECI at the time of preparation of this report even after a delay of 313 days (as on 10^th September 2025). These include Zoram Nationalist Party, Nationalist Congress Party, Bodoland Peoples Front, United People’s Party, Liberal, Lok Jan Shakti Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Rashtriya Lok Samta Party, Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (J), Jammu & Kashmir National Conference, Jammu & Kashmir National Panthers Party, Indian Union Muslim League, Shiv Sena, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackrey), Hill State People’s Democratic Party, People’s Democratic Front, Voice of the People Party, United Democratic Party, Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura, Revolutionary Socialist Party and NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar).
Hence, this report analyses the income and expenditure of 40 Regional Political Parties, whose audit reports are available on the ECI website for FY 2023-24.

Total income declared by Regional Political Parties, FY 2023-24

The total income of the 40 Regional Parties for the FY 2023-24 was Rs 2532.096 cr.
BRS reported having the highest income of Rs 685.5177 cr, which forms 27.07% of the total income of all the parties analysed, followed by AITC with an income of Rs 646.392 cr or 25.53% and BJD whose income was Rs 297.806 cr or 11.76% of the total income of the 40 Regional parties analysed in this report.
The total income of top 5 parties amounted to Rs 2105.8286 cr, which comprised 83.17% of the total income of the political parties analysed collectively.

Comparison of Income of Regional Parties, FY 2022-23 and FY 2023-24

For 39 parties out of 40 political parties whose data is available for both the years, 23 parties have shown an increase in their income from FY 2022-23 to FY 2023-24 while 15 parties have shown a decline in their income during this period.
It is to be noted that the Goa Forward Party has declared zero income during FY 2022–23 and FY 2023–24.
Total income of the 39 parties increased from Rs 1736.851 cr in FY 2022-23 to Rs 2531.802 cr in FY 2023-24, a total increase of 45.77% or Rs 794.951 cr.
AITC reported the highest increase in its income of Rs 312.935 cr, followed by TDP and BJD which declared a total increase of Rs 221.076 cr and Rs 116.753 cr respectively, between FY 2022-23 and FY 2023-24.

Unspent Income of Regional Parties, FY 2023-24

There are 27 Regional parties who declared a part of their income as remaining unspent for FY 2023-24 while 12 political parties spent more than the income collected during the year.
BRS has more than Rs 430.6032 cr of its total income remaining unspent while AITC and BJD have Rs 414.9195 cr and Rs 253.7964 cr respectively, of their income remaining unspent for FY 2023-24.
YSR- Congress, DMK, SP, JD(U), SAD, CPI(ML)(L), LJP (Ram Vilas), AIFB, MNF, NPF, PPA and MGP are the 12 regional parties that declared spending more than their income. YSR-Congress has declared spending the highest amount of Rs 104.7235 cr or 54.82% more than its income.
It is to be noted that Goa Forward Party is the only party which has not declared any income for FY 2023-24, but the party has declared expenses during this year of Rs 1.56 lakhs.

Total expenditure incurred by Regional Parties, FY 2023-24

The total declared expenditure of the 40 Regional parties for the FY 2023-24 was Rs 1320.96 cr.
Total expenditure incurred by the top 5 parties is Rs 1103.3191 cr or 83.52% of the total expenditure as reported by the 40 political parties.
Top 5 parties that have incurred highest expenditure are YSR-Congress which spent Rs 295.7664 cr or 22.39%, followed by BRS which spent Rs 254.9145 cr or 19.298%, AITC which spent Rs 231.4725 cr or 17.523%, DMK which spent Rs 200.0677 cr or 15.146% and TDP spent Rs 121.098 cr or 9.167% of the total expenditure.

All sources of Income declared by Regional Political parties, FY 2023-24

40 Regional Parties collected Rs 2117.846 cr or 83.64% of their total income from voluntary contributions (includes Donations & Contributions and Electoral Bonds) for FY 2023-24.
Under voluntary contributions, political parties collected 70.93% or Rs 1796.024 cr of their income from Donations through Electoral Bonds while other Donations & Contributions amounted to Rs 321.822 cr or 12.71% for FY 2023-24. The share of other sources of income declared by regional parties is Rs 414.25 cr which is 16.36% of the total declared income.
Only 10 of the 40 Regional Parties that were analysed declared donations through Electoral Bonds amounting to Rs 1796.024 cr.
10.86% or Rs 274.898 cr of the total income was generated through Interest Income by the 40 Regional Parties during FY 2023-24.

Observations of ADR

Audit reports of 20 parties out of the 40 parties analyzed in this report were available on the ECI website after a delay of 12 days to 216 days from the last date of submission.
The audit reports of 20 regional parties are not available on the ECI website at the time of preparation of this report even after 313 days since the due date for submission.
More than 70% of the total income (Rs 1796.024 cr) of the 40 regional political parties analysed for FY 2023-24 came from Donations through Electoral Bonds.
The most common and popular items of expenditure for regional parties for FY 2023-24 are Administrative & General Expenses and Election Expenditure.
As per the data shared by SBI in response to ADR’s RTI application, Electoral Bonds worth Rs 4507.5613 cr were redeemed by parties in FY 2023-24. 55.998% (Rs 2524.1361 cr) of this has been redeemed by National Parties and 39.84% (Rs 1796.024 cr) is redeemed by Regional Parties.
For FY 2023-24, only 3 National Parties (BJP, INC and AAP) have received donations through Electoral Bonds (Rs 2524.1361 cr). Of the Regional parties that have submitted their audit reports, 10 Regional Parties (BRS, AITC, BJD, TDP, YSR-Congress, DMK, JD(S), SKM, JMM and SDF) have declared receiving donations through Electoral Bonds worth Rs 1796.024 cr.

Recommendations of ADR

The Supreme Court gave a judgment on September 13, 2013 declaring that no part of a candidate’s affidavit should be left blank. Along the same lines, we recommend that the Election Commission of India impose rules that no part of the Form 24A submitted by political parties providing details of donations above Rs 20,000 should be left blank.
Full details of all donors should be made available for public scrutiny under the RTI.
According to the Finance Act, 2017, Section 13A of the IT Act was amended to state that tax exemption will be given to registered political parties “Provided also that such political party furnishes a return of income for the previous year in accordance with the provisions of sub-section (4B) of section 139 on or before the due date under that section.” Thus, any party which does not submit its IT returns on or before the due date, their income should not be tax-exempt and defaulting parties should be derecognized.
Those parties not following the ICAI guidelines for auditing of reports should be scrutinized by the IT department.
All political parties must provide all information on their finances under the Right to Information Act. This will only strengthen political parties, elections and democracy.
Penal or stringent action (instead of only sending reminder letters) to be taken against recognised political parties for delaying or defaulting on the submission of their audit and contribution reports each year. Specific laws that command culpability like Section 13A of the Income Tax Act, 1961 and Section 29 (C) of the Representation of People Act, 1951 which lay down a proviso stating cancellation of tax exemption to political parties if they fail to submit their financial statements has not been stringently enforced by the Election Commission. Every year, between FY 2017-18 to 2023-24, at least 16 parties defaulted on the submission of their annual reports.