DMK richest regional party with Rs. 78cr, AIADMK comes second
The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) analyzed the income and expenditure of 32 regional parties for the financial year 2015-16. It revealed that their total income was a whooping Rs. 222cr. Of this, southern parties DMK at Rs. 78cr, AIADMK at Rs. 55cr and TDP at Rs. 16cr accounted for 60% of the total income! What else did the report reveal? Read on!
The richest regional parties, DMK and AIADMK, are left with 80% of unspent income even though TN Assembly elections were held in 2016. On the other hand, 14 of 32 parties spent more than their total income. Some parties like Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) and Ajit Singh-led RLD have spent about 200% of their total income. Regional parties overall had 50% unspent income.
Regional parties received 44% of total income from known donors and 36% from sale of assets, membership fees, etc. To compute unknown sources of income, details of IT returns and donation statements are required which was provided by only 18 parties. Compared with national parties, which had 70% of their income from unknown sources, regional parties' unknown sources of income accounted for only 20%.
With respect to expenditure, among the top five parties, JD(U) spent the maximum Rs. 14cr on elections. It was followed by TDP which spent Rs. 9cr on administrative and general expenses and AAP which spent Rs. 5cr on propaganda.
There are 47 regional parties in the country. Of these, 15 parties, including Akhilesh Yadav-led SP and Lalu Yadav's RJD didn't submit their detailed audit reports to the EC. To tackle this, the report suggested such parties should not be tax-exempted and should be de-recognized. As there is high unaccounted money, report says donor details should be available under RTI.
