Over 54% of the assets declared by seven national parties for 2018-2019 belonged to the Bharatiya Janata Party, while the Congress accounted for 58% of all liabilities reported by the parties, according to a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) released on Thursday.
The ADR’s analysis of the balance sheets of the national parties at that time — the BJP, the Congress, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Communist Party of India (CPI), the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and the All-India Trinamool Congress (AITC) — showed assets of ₹5,349.25 crore. Forty-one regional parties declared assets of ₹2,023.71 crore that year, the report added.
Of the national parties, the BJP declared assets of ₹2,904.18 crore or 54.29% of the total assets of the national parties, followed by the Congress, which declared ₹928.84 crore or 17.36% of the total and the BSP, which had ₹738 crore or 13.80% in assets. Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Party had the highest assets among the regional parties with ₹572.21 crore or 28.28% of the total. The Biju Janata Dal and the AIADMK were the second and third on the list, with ₹232.27 crore and ₹206.75 crore in assets respectively.
Among the national parties, the BJP had the highest declared capital, with ₹2,866.717 ccrore, followed by the Congress and the BSP with ₹850.42 crore and ₹735.77 crore respectively. The CPI had the lowest capital, with ₹24.87 crore.
The Congress declared the highest liabilities, with ₹78.415 crore or 58.75% of the total, followed by the BJP’s liabilities of ₹37.46 crore.
The ADR report said the national and regional parties had failed to adhere to guidelines of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) regarding declaration of details of loans taken.
“The guidelines specify that the parties should state the ‘terms of repayment of term loans’ on the basis of due date such as a year, one-five years or payable after five years ... ICAI guidelines, on auditing of political parties which were also endorsed by the ECI in order to improve transparency in the finances of political parties, remain guidelines only and have not been actively taken up by the political parties as a mandatory procedure to disclose details of their income,” the report said.
