Among the political parties, the Congress is the richest. It has an aggregate income of Rs.1,518 crore earned over a seven-year period between the assessment years 2002-2003 and 2009-2010.
For the same period, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party reported incomes of Rs. 754 crore and Rs. 358 crore respectively.
However, the BSP grew rich the fastest. From only Rs. 6 crore in 2002-2003, its income went up to Rs.182 crore in 2009-2010. The Congress reported an income of Rs. 69.56 crore in 2002-2003. By 2009-2010, this went up to Rs. 497 crore.
The BSP's assets also grew substantially in the seven years, increasing from Rs.11 crore to Rs.286 crore. The Congress reported a total asset value of Rs. 53 crore in 2002-2003. This zoomed up to Rs. 612 crore when it filed its returns for the assessment year 2009-2010. The Samajwadi Party's asset value stood at Rs. 14 crore in 2002-2003. Over the next seven years, this grew to Rs. 178 crore. The BJP's assets grew from Rs. 81.41 crore to Rs. 261 crore.
The maximum annualised growth average in total assets in this period was recorded by the BSP (59 per cent), followed by the Nationalist Congress Party (51 per cent) and the SP (44 per cent).
As on March 31, 2009, the maximum capital fund was reported by the Congress (Rs. 549 crore), followed the BSP (Rs. 286 crore) and the BJP (Rs. 246 crore).
These details were obtained by the National Election Watch (NEW), which filed Right to Information applications seeking copies of the income tax returns of the various parties. The NEW obtained income tax returns data for the Congress the BJP, the BSP, the Communist Party of India (CPI), the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M), the NCP, the SP and the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
