The Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), a body spearheading the cause of transparency in democratic set-up and election funding, has said that 57 per cent of total income of five national parties during financial year 2013-14 was from sale of coupons while donations formed 22 per cent of the income of the parties.
Releasing the data analysed by it on Tuesday, ADR’s State coordinator Bhaskar Assoldekar said that the BJP is yet to submit its report to the Election commission of India.
The ECI had last year asked the president/general secretary of all political parties, to mandatorily submit details of their audited report to it. The present report analyses the total income and expenditure incurred by the national parties during FY 2013-14, as declared by the parties in their I-T returns submitted to the ECI. The due date for submission of annual audited accounts for the parties was November 30, 2014.
Of the six national parties, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the CPI , the CPI(M) and the Nationalist Congress Party submitted their audited report, while the Indian National Congress submitted its report under protest stating that unless necessary amendments were made in the Represenation of People’s Act, 1951, the ECI did not have the power to demand such reports from the parties.
The BJP, in its letter dated July 9, had requested for four weeks’ time but is yet to file the required reports.
The five national parties, whose I-T returns are available in the public domain, have declared a total income of Rs. 844.71 crore, collected from all over the country.
INC has shown the highest income amongst the five with a total income of Rs. 598.06 crore during FY 2013-14. This formed 70.8 per cent of the total income of the five national parties, together.
Collection from sale of coupons continues to be one of the major sources of income, where INC declared collection of Rs. 477.316 crore while NCP declared collection of Rs. 8.32 crore from such sale.
A comparison of total donations declared by the parties in their I-T returns (both above and below Rs.20,000) and that declared in the donations report shows that only 41 per cent of the total donations of the parties came from voluntary contributions above Rs. 20,000.
A total of Rs.111.29 crore (59 per cent) of the total donations to national parties was collected during FY 2013-14 from donors whose details are not available in the public domain.
The unknown sources are income declared in the I-T returns but without giving source of income for donations below Rs. 20,000. Such unknown sources include ‘sale of coupons’, ‘purse money’, ‘relief fund’, ‘miscellaneous income’, ‘voluntary contributions,’ ‘contribution from meetings/ morchas’, etc.
