The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has highest amount of income among all regional parties in the country during 2022-23 with Rs 747.67 crore. This is 42.38 percent of the income of all parties together. This was revealed in the report released by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) on the basis of their audited accounts submitted to the Election Commission of India (ECI).
The top five parties with the highest expenditure are All India Trinamool Congress which spent Rs 181.18 crore or 37.66 per cent, followed by YSR-Congress which spent Rs 79.32 crore or 16.49 per cent, BRS, which spent Rs 57.47 crore or 11.94 per cent, DMK, which spent Rs 52.62 crore or 10.94 per cent, and the Samajwadi Party, which spent Rs 31.41 crore or 6.53 per cent of the total expenditure, ADR said.
Moreover, while 19 regional parties declared unspent income for the fiscal year, BRS had the highest unspent income of Rs 680.20 crore, followed by Biju Janata Dal with Rs 171.06 crore and DMK with Rs 161.72 crore.
After BRS, the TMC had the highest income of Rs 333.45 crore or 19.16 per cent, while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) reported an income of Rs 214.35 crore or 12.32 per cent of the total income of the 39 regional parties analysed in the ADR report.
Collectively, the top five parties accounted for Rs 1,541.32 crore, or 88.56 per cent of the total income of the parties analysed while the total declared income of the 39 regional parties stood at Rs 1,740.48 crore, according to the analysis.
The audit reports for 18 regional parties, including prominent ones like Shiv Sena (SHS), Bodoland People’s Front (BPF), Jammu & Kashmir National Conference, Nationalist Congress Party, and Shiv Sena (UBT), were not available on the ECI website at the time of the report’s preparation, the ADR said. Conversely, 20 parties reported expenditures exceeding their income, with Janata Dal (Secular) spending 490.43 per cent more than its income.
Voluntary contributions, including donations and electoral bonds, were the primary sources of income for the parties, amounting to Rs 1,522.46 crore or 87.47 per cent of the total income. Of this, Rs 1,285.83 crore came from electoral bonds. Only eight regional parties declared receiving donations through electoral bonds.