‘BJP, Cong yet to submit annual income reports’

ADR DATA CPM the national party with the highest income, BSP next

NEW DELHI: In the absence of income declaration by the BJP and Congress, the CPM has emerged as the national party with the highest income, ₹107.48 crore, during the financial year 2015-16. This is 53.34% of the total income declared by the four national parties — All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Communist Party of India (CPI) — to the Election Commission (EC), shows a report by the election watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), on the other hand, spent the most, even more than it earned. The party informed EC that it spent 19% more than its total income during financial year 2015-16. The party’s expenses, at ₹10.84 crore, outran its income of ₹9.14 crore.

BJP and the Congress failed to file their annual reports more than six months after the last date for doing so, says ADR.

In 2014, the EC made it mandatory for recognised parties to submit details of their audited reports to the Commission.

As per details of income filed by the national parties, the BSP was second with a declared income of ₹47.385 crore while AITC was third with ₹34.578 crore, followed by NCP with ₹9.14 crore and CPI with ₹2.17 crore. These parties declared a total income of ₹200.76 crore, collected from all over India.

The parties also declared their total spending from this income to the EC. The BSP claims to have spent only 25% or ₹11.90 crore of the income while AITC spent 39% or ₹13.35 crore of the total income.

The income of BJP during FY 2014-15 was highest among all the national parties; it declared a total of ₹970.43 crore.

Between 2014-15 and 2015-16, the income of AITC increased by 180.68% while the NCP’s decreased by 86.49%. BSP also showed a slump in its earnings by 57.68%.

As per the ADR report, the total income of parties from known donors was ₹4.75 crore, which is 2.37 % of the total income of these five national parties.