BJP’s Assets Account for 69% of All National Parties Combined: ADR Report

The Association for Democratic Reforms is a poll reforms advocacy group. It prepared a report based on its analysis of assets and liabilities of national and regional parties in 2019-20. The assets declared by Political Parties fall under six major heads: fixed assets, loans & advances, FDR/ deposits, TDS, investments and other assets.

According to the analysis, the total assets declared by the 7 national (BJP, BSP, Congress, CPM, AITC, CPI, NCP) and 44 regional parties during the FY 2019-20 amounted to Rs 6,988.57 crore and Rs 2,129.38 crore, respectively. While the total liabilities declared by the 7 national and 44 regional parties for the FY 2019-20 amount to Rs 134.93 crore.

Among the 7 national parties, the BJP declared assets worth Rs 4,847.78 crore in the FY 2019-20, the highest among all political parties, followed by the BSP at Rs 698.33 crore and the Congress at Rs 588.16 crore. The National Parties declared the total liabilities of Rs 74.27 crore, Rs 4.26 crore under Borrowings and Rs 70.01 crore under Other Liabilities, in FY 2019-20. Congress declared the highest total liabilities of Rs 49.55 crore (66.72 per cent) followed by AITC that declared Rs 11.32 crore (15.24 per cent)”. Under the FDR/Fixed Deposits category for the FY 2019-20, the BJP declared Rs 3,253.00 crore, the BSP declared Rs 618.86 crore and the Congress declared Rs 240.90 crore.

Among the 44 regional parties, the assets of the top 10 parties were worth Rs 2028.715 crore In FY 2019-20, among the regional parties, the highest assets were declared by the Samajwadi Party at Rs 563.47 crore, followed by the TRS at Rs 301.47 crore and the AIADMK at Rs 267.61 crore. Regional political parties declared total liabilities of Rs 60.66 crore in FY 2019-20, Rs 30.29 crore under Borrowings and Rs 30.37 crore under Other Liabilities. In the FY 2019-20, TDP declared the highest total liabilities of Rs 30.342 crore followed by DMK that declared Rs 8.05 crore. Fixed Deposits/FDR constituted the largest share of Rs 1,639.51 crore of the total assets declared by regional parties in FY 2019-20.

The report also highlights the significant increase in assets of the seven parties, from ₹3,260.81 crore in 2016-17 to ₹3,456.65 crore in 2017-18, ₹5,349.25 crore in 2018-19, and ₹6,988.57 crore in 2019-20. The BJP declared ₹2,904.18 crore of assets in 2018-19, and while it saw a 67% increase in its assets to ₹4,847.78 crore in 2019-20, the Congress saw its assets in the same period fall from ₹928.84 crore to ₹588.16 crore, and the BSP from ₹738 crore to 698.33 crore.