CRORES IN ITS COFFERS

With assets worth Rs 1,000 crore, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) is among the richest regional political parties in the country. Besides immovable assets, including offices in Hyderabad, the districts and one coming up in Delhi, the party is flush with money, enough to fund a national push. The cash component of its total asset base is Rs 861 crore, including fixed deposits of Rs 451 crore and funds from electoral bonds pledged with the State Bank of India and the Bank of Baroda. The party earns Rs 3.84 crore every month as interest on the fixed deposits. The accrued interest in its current account is Rs 24.7 crore.

TRS chief and Telangana CM K. Chandrashekar Rao is confident that much more can be raised with ease. “If every worker or leader contributes Rs 1,000, the party can raise Rs 600 crore (from 6 million members), which can come in handy for our foray into national politics,” says KCR.

At the same time, the BJP and the Congress can mobilise a lot more in terms of financial resources if they wish. A report by the Association for Democratic Reforms, a poll reforms advocacy group, based on an assets-liabilities analysis of political parties in financial year 2019-20, suggested the BJP is the richest party in the country, with declared assets worth Rs 4,847.8 crore, followed by the Bahujan Samaj Party with Rs 698.3 crore and the Congress with Rs 588.2 crore. Among the regional parties, the Samajwadi Party declared the highest assets (Rs 563.5 crore) in the same period, followed by the TRS (Rs 301.5 crore) and the AIADMK (Rs 267.6 crore). Some of that will likely be flowing like water in the near future.