57% income of 5 parties came from donation coupons: Association for Democratic Reforms

PANAJI: Nearly 57 per cent of total income of five national parties during financial year 2013-14 was from sale of coupons (smaller donations), a leading election watchdog NGO has said.

"Bigger donations formed 22 per cent of the income of the parties," said Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), based on the data collected from Election Commission of India.

The data of five political parties - Indian National Congress (INC), CPM, Bahujan Samajwadi party, Nationalist Congress Party and Communist Party of India - was analysed to derive the results, ADR coordinator Bhaskar Assoldekar said.

"The ECI, in its letter dated November 19, 2014 issued to the president/general secretary of all political parties, stated that it was mandatory for the parties to submit details of their audited report to the Commission. This report analyses the total income and expenditure incurred by the national parties during FY14, as declared by the parties in their IT returns submitted to the ECI," he said.

BJP is yet to submit its report to the ECI, it said.

The five national parties, whose Income Tax Returns are available in public domain, declared a total income of Rs 844.71 crore, collected from all over India, he said.

"INC has shown the highest income of Rs 598.06 crores in FY 2013-14 among the national parties. This formed 70.8 per cent of the total income of all the five national parties together during the fiscal," the ADR report mentions.

"CPM declared the second highest income of Rs 121.87 crore which forms 14.43 per cent of the total income of the national parties. CPI declared the least income of Rs 2.43 crore which is a mere 0.29 per cent of the total income of the national parties during FY14," Assoldekar said.

The collection from sale of coupons was one of the major sources of income. Congress declared collection of Rs 477.316 crore while NCP had a collection of Rs 8.32 crore from the sale of such coupons, he said.

"A total of Rs 485.64 crores were collected by INC and NCP together via sale of coupons, which contributed to 57.49 per cent of the total income of the five national parties," he said.

The NGO also said Congress declared the maximum income from donations of Rs 64.233 crore, followed by CPM with Rs 60.53 crore and BSP with Rs 48.60 crore.

"Out of the total income of Rs 844.71 crore declared by the national parties during FY14, Rs 188.22 crore was from (bigger) donations/voluntary contributions. This formed 22 per cent of the total income of the parties," Assoldekar said.