In a survey that had studies the earning of each party over the past seven years, it was revealed that the Congress had earned most money which were accounted to at least Rs 2008 crores. Far behind relative to the Congress Party is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which had assets worth Rs 994 crores.
The political watchdog, Election Watch had recently released the figures based on only the donations and other incomes of all the parties. Following Congress and the BJP is the Mayawati led Bahujan Samaj Party which has funds worth Rs 484 crores.
Though the donations were the major source of income to the parties, the contributors who were named for the donations very attributed to a very small percentage of the total funds.
In 2009-2011, named donors to BJP had contributed to only 22.76% of the total money while the Congress had no more than 11.89% of the total sums.
Incredible as it may be, BSP has said that the donations to the party were never over Rs 20,000 in the above mentioned period.
Association for Democratic Reforms and National Election Watch released a report on the income of 23 major parties with information from the list of donors that had been submitted to the Election Commission for the period between 2004- 2011 and also the IT returns.
The report mentions that there was a steep increase in the earnings of Congress as the earnings shot skyward from Rs 222 crores in 2004 to Rs 307 crores in 2011. The situation is the same with BJP.
The NGOs said donations and voluntary contributions seem to be one of the major sources of income for most of the political parties. They demanded that the functioning of the electoral trusts of the corporates should be transparent. They also demanded that political parties should be declared as public authorities.
An NGO founder claimed that political funding was the main source of corruption in the nation and that only transparency in the issue can be a good starting point in the fight against corruption.
Incomes of other parties are as follows: NCP (Rs 160 crore), AIADMK (Rs 59 crore), SAD (Rs 25 crore), National Conference (Rs 21 crore), JD(U) (Rs 26 crore), TDP (53 crore), DMK (Rs 40 crore), Trinamool (Rs 9 crore), Shiv Sena (Rs 32 crore), LJP (Rs 4 crore) TRS and RLD (Rs 10 crore each), Forward Bloc (Rs 98 lakh) and Sikkim Democratic Front (Rs 92 lakh).
(AW- Anil)
