Press Release: 10 Regional Parties (DMK, BJD, TRS, YSR-Congress, JDU, SP AAP, SAD, MGP and TDP) have declared receiving donations through Electoral Bonds worth Rs 852.88 cr

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Apr 8, 2023, 2:36:04 AM4/8/23

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Press Release

Date: 8th April, 2023

Analysis of Income & Expenditure of Regional Political Parties for FY 2021-22

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 2021-22, kindly access the reports on the website: https://adrindia.org/content/analysis-income-expenditure-regional-political-parties-fy-2021-22

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 36 out of 54 Regional Parties during FY 2021-22, as declared by the parties in their Audit reports submitted to the ECI.

The Regional Parties include AAP, AGP, AIADMK, AIFB, AINRC, AIUDF, AJSU, BJD, CPI(ML)(L), DMDK, DMK, GFP, INLD, JCC(J), JDS, JDU, JJP, JKPDP, JMM, KC-M, MGP, MNS, NDPP, NPF, PDA, PDF, PMK, RJD, RLD, SAD, SDF, SP, TDP, TRS, UPPL and YSR-Congress.

Status of submission of audited reports by the Regional Parties, FY 2021-22

The due date for submission of annual audited accounts for the parties was 31st October,'22.
20 parties had submitted their audit reports on time, while 16 parties delayed their submission by several days, ranging from 1 day to 97 days.
Audit reports of the remaining 18 regional parties for FY 2021-22 are unavailable on the website of the ECI at the time of preparation of this report. These include some major political parties like AIMIM, Shivsena, JKNC, BPF and IUML etc.
Hence, this report analyses the income and expenditure of 36 Regional Political Parties, whose audit reports are available on the ECI website, for FY 2021-22.

Total income declared by Regional Political Parties, FY 2021-22

The total income of the 36 Regional Parties for the FY 2021-22 was Rs 1213.132 cr.
DMK reported having the highest income of Rs 318.745 cr, which forms 26.27% of the total income of all the parties analysed, followed by BJD with an income of Rs 307.288 cr or 25.33% and TRS whose income was Rs 218.112 cr or 17.98% of the total income of the 36 Regional parties analysed in this report.
The total income of top 5 parties amounted to Rs 1024.424 cr, which comprised 84.44% of the total income of the political parties analysed collectively.

Comparison of Income of Regional Parties, FY 2020-21 and FY 2021-22

For 35 parties out of 36 political parties whose data is available for both the years, 20 parties have shown an increase in their income from FY 2020-21 to FY 2021-22 while 15 parties have shown a decline in their income during this period.
Total income of the 35 parties increased from Rs 565.424 cr in FY 2020-21 to Rs 1212.708 cr in FY 2021-22, a total increase of 114.48% or Rs 647.284 cr.
BJD reported the highest increase in its income of Rs 233.941 cr, followed by TRS and DMK which declared a total increase of Rs 180.454 cr and Rs 168.795 cr respectively, between FY 2020-21 and FY 2021-22.

Unspent Income of Regional Parties, FY 2021-22

There are 21 Regional parties who declared a part of their income as remaining unspent for the FY 2021-22 while 15 political parties spent more than the income collected during the year.
DMK has more than Rs 283.344 cr of its total income remaining unspent while BJD and TRS have Rs 278.658 cr and Rs 190.173 cr respectively, of their income remaining unspent for FY 2021-22.
SAD, AIADMK, TDP, JDS, MGP, RLD, PMK, INLD, JKPDP, AIUDF, NPF, SDF, PDA, DMDK and JCC(J) are the 15 regional parties that declared spending more than their income. DMDK has declared spending the highest amount of Rs 3.3052 cr or 30603.70% more than its income.

Total expenditure incurred by Regional Parties, FY 2021-22

The total declared expenditure of the 36 Regional parties for the FY 2021-22 was Rs 288.146 cr.
Total expenditure incurred by the top 5 parties is Rs 176.779 cr or 61.35% of the total expenditure as reported by the 36 political parties.
Top 5 parties that have incurred highest expenditure are SP which spent Rs 54.017 cr or 18.746%, followed by DMK which spent Rs 35.401 cr or 12.286%, AAP which spent Rs 30.295 cr or 10.514%, BJD which spent Rs 28.63 cr or 9.936% and AIADMK spent Rs 28.436 cr or 9.869% of the total expenditure.

All sources of Income declared by Regional Political parties, FY 2021-22

36 Regional Parties collected Rs 1039.987 cr or 85.7274% of their total income from voluntary contributions (includes Donations & Contributions and Electoral Bonds) for FY 2021-22.
Under voluntary contributions, political parties collected 70.3039% or Rs 852.88 cr of their income from Donations through Electoral Bonds while other Donations & Contributions amounted to Rs 187.107 cr or 15.4235% for FY 2021-22. The share of other sources of income declared by regional parties is Rs 173.145 cr which is 14.2726% of the total declared income.
Only 10 of the 36 Regional Parties that were analysed declared donations through Electoral Bonds amounting to Rs 852.88 cr.
7.70% or Rs 93.468 cr of the total income was generated through Interest Income by the 36 Regional Parties during FY 2021-22.

Observations of ADR

Audit reports of 16 parties were available on the ECI website after a delay of 1 day to 97 days from the last date of submission.
The income tax returns/audit reports of 18 regional parties are not available on the ECI website at the time of preparation of this report even after 158 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 2021-22. More than 70.30% of the total income (Rs 852.88 cr) of the 36 regional political parties analysed for FY 2021-22 is from Donations through Electoral Bonds.
The most common and popular items of expenditure for regional parties for FY 2021-22 are election expenses/general propaganda and administrative/general expenses.
As per the data shared by SBI in response to ADR’s RTI application, Electoral Bonds worth Rs 2673.0525 cr were redeemed by parties in FY 2021-22. 67.79% (Rs 1811.9425 cr) of this has been redeemed by National Parties and 31.91% (Rs 852.88 cr) is redeemed by Regional Parties.
For the FY 2021-22, only 4 National Parties (BJP, INC, NCP and AITC) have received from Donations through Electoral Bonds (Rs 1811.9425 cr) wherein identity of the donor is not disclosed to the public. Of the Regional parties that have submitted their audit reports, 10 Regional Parties (DMK, BJD, TRS, YSR-Congress, JDU, SP AAP, SAD, MGP and TDP) have declared receiving donations through Electoral Bonds worth Rs 852.88 cr.
MGP party has not declared income through Electoral Bonds in its audit report, but the party has given Electoral Bonds amount in the Contributions report that they had submitted to the ECI. The Electoral Bonds amount is Rs 55 lakhs.