Press Release: The election expenditure statements of BJP, NCP, CPI, JDU, RJD, RLD, SHS and AIFB are not available in the public domain despite contesting elections, with a total delay of more than 230 Days

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Dec 17, 2020, 12:05:10 AM12/17/20

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Press Release

17th December 2020

Analysis of Funds Collected and Expenditure Incurred by Political Parties during

Delhi Assembly Election, 2020

For the complete reports in English and Hindi on party-wise funds collected and expenditure incurred by political parties under various heads such as publicity and travel, refer to the detailed reports attached herewith.

To access the reports on the website, please go to: https://adrindia.org/content/analysis-funds-collected-and-expenditure-incurred-political-parties-during-delhi-assembly

Executive Summary

Political parties are required to submit a statement of election expenditure to the Election Commission of India (ECI) within 75 days of completion of Assembly Elections.
The expenditure statement contains details of the total amount received as funds in the form of cash, cheques and demand drafts and the total amount spent under various heads.
The expenditure statement contains information on the amount spent on the following heads at the central and state levels by the party:

o Publicity

o Travel expenses

o Other expenses

o Expenditure towards candidates

o Expenditure incurred on publication of criminal antecedents of candidates

Political parties submit these statements providing information of funds collected and spent between announcement and completion of elections. This period could be between 3 weeks to 3 months based on the notification issued by the Election Commission.
This report analyses the funds received and expenditure incurred by recognized political parties, during the State Assembly elections to Delhi, held in the months of January (elections announced on 06-01-2020) and February (elections completed on 13-02-2020), 2020.
6 National Parties and 7 Regional Parties have been considered in this report.
Election expenditure statements of BJP, NCP, CPI, JDU, RJD, RLD, SHS and AIFB for Delhi Assembly election are unavailable on the website of the ECI at the time of preparation of this report.

Details provided in the Election Expenditure Statement

Funds Collected and Expenditure incurred by political parties

Total funds collected by 5 political parties during Delhi Assembly Election held in 2020 was Rs 49.996 cr and total expenditure incurred was Rs 34.32 cr.
Funds collected by the parties at the Central Headquarters was Rs 35.685 cr and expenditure was Rs 33.776 cr. Delhi State Units of parties spent Rs 54.40 lakhs.
LJP is the only party that declared no funds collected and no expenditure incurred either at the central or at the state unit level despite contesting election.

Expenditure incurred by political parties under various heads

Political parties declare their expenditure under the heads of Publicity, Travel Expenses, Other/ Miscellaneous expenses, Lumpsum amounts paid to their contesting candidates and Expenditure incurred on publishing criminal antecedents of the candidate(s).
Political Parties that contested in Delhi Election, 2020, spent the highest, Rs 31.04 cr on Publicity, followed by Rs 15.41 cr on Lumpsum amount paid to candidates, Rs 3.30 cr on Other/Miscellaneous expenses, Rs 12.80 lakhs on Expenditure incurred on publishing criminal antecedents of the candidate(s) and Rs 1.31 lakhs on Travel.
Expenditure on Publicity is 62.217% of the overall expenditure declared under various heads.
Expenditure on Lumpsum amount paid to candidates is 30.89% of the overall expenditure declared under various heads.
LJP is the only party that declared no expenses incurred under the five heads.

Expenditure on Publicity by political parties

Political Parties are required to segregate their publicity expenses under three heads: Media Advertisement, Publicity Materials and Public Meetings.
Publicity expenditure from Central Headquarters is the highest, Rs 30.552 cr or 98.43% of the total expenditure on publicity, followed by Rs 48.80 lakhs or 1.57% from Delhi State Units.
During Delhi Assembly election, political parties spent the maximum on Media Advertisement (Rs 22.702 cr), followed by expenditure on Publicity Materials (Rs 8.058 cr) and Public Meetings (Rs 28 lakhs).

Expenditure on Travel by political parties

The ‘Travel’ head is segregated into travel expenses incurred specifically on star campaigners and that of the party leaders.
Political parties spent 51.91% of their total travel expenses or Rs 68,000 on their star campaigners and Rs 63,000 spent on travel of their party leaders.
Travel expenses from Delhi State Units by itself were Rs 68,000 or 51.91%, higher than the expenses incurred from Central Headquarters of Rs 63,000 or 48.09%.

Observations of ADR

The complete election expenditure statements of BJP, NCP, CPI, JDU, RJD, RLD, SHS and AIFB are not available in the public domain despite contesting elections, with a total delay of more than 230 Days. This is in violation of the Supreme Court judgment dated 4th April, ’96 (Common Cause vs. Union of India), directing the Election Commission to create a format for the recognized parties to submit their statements.
5 Political Parties CPM, BSP, AAP, LJP and INC delayed the submission of their election expenditure statements for Delhi State Assembly Election, 2020 by 79 days, 138 days, 138 days, 145 days and 162 days respectively.
LJP declared no expenditure incurred despite contesting elections. Despite incurring zero expenditure, the election expenditure statement of the party was available after a delay of 145 days.

Recommendations of ADR

This year, nine working groups (comprising of Chief Electoral Officers of states and other ECI officials) presented their draft recommendations to the ECI, among which it was suggested that there needs to be a cap on the expenditure to be incurred for an election by political parties. In 2015, ECI also recommended to the Ministry of Law, a proposal to cap maximum expenditure of political parties to a multiple of half of maximum prescribed limit for individual candidates with the number of candidates fielded. ADR recommends that steps must be taken in this regard and the modalities must be worked out in a time bound manner.
It must be made mandatory for all political parties to submit their statements of expenditure in the format given by the ECI, within the prescribed time limit. Political parties not submitting on time or in the prescribed format should be heavily penalized.
The details of all donors who contribute to National and Regional parties exclusively for their election campaigns must be declared in the public domain irrespective of the amount donated.
A format similar to the donations report along with the date of donations, submitted to the ECI on an annual basis, has to be prescribed for the expenditure statement so as to bring in more transparency in the finances of the political parties especially during elections when it is said that black money plays a major role.
Where possible, expenditure must be limited to transactions via cheque/DD/RTGS so as to reduce use of black money in elections, as per the transparency guidelines issued by the ECI.
Similar to the shadow observers of the ECI for monitoring expenditure of candidates, there must also be observers for monitoring the expenditure of political parties.