Source: 
Author: 
Date: 
19.08.2015
City: 
New Delhi

Five national parties have declared a total income of Rs 844.71 crore in 2013-14 with Congress leading the list with Rs 598.06 crore, according to a report by a private election watchdog.

However, 80 per cent of the income for five of the six national parties come from “unknown sources”, prompting Association for Democratic  Rights (ADR) to demand that full details of all donors should be made available for public scrutiny.

 The BJP has not submitted its account to the Election Commission yet.
According to rules, parties need not declare those who have not donated less than Rs 20,000.

The report noted that the total income of parties from unknown sources (income specified in the IT Returns whose sources are unknown), for 2013-14 is Rs 673.08 crore, which is 79.68 per cent of the total income of the parties. Such unknown sources include sale of coupons, purse money, relief fund, miscellaneous income, voluntary contributions, contribution from meetings etc. The details of donors of such voluntary contributions are not available in the public domain, it said.

“Some countries where this is done include Bhutan, Nepal, Germany, France, Italy, Brazil, Bulgaria, the US and Japan. In none of these countries is it possible for 80 per cent of the source of funds to be unknown, but at present it is so in India,” the ADR said.

While Congress has the highest income, CPI(M) declared the second highest income of Rs 121.87 crore, which forms 14.43 per cent of the total income of the national parties and CPI, the least income of Rs 2.43 crore. BSP declared Rs 66.91 crore and NCP Rs 55.42 crore.

Parties collected money through donations, coupon sales, sale of forms and sale of flags and badges besides other sources. Collection from sale of coupons was one of the major sources of income where Congress declared collection of Rs 477.316 crore while NCP declared collection of Rs 8.32 crore this mode.

Congress also declared the maximum income from donations which amounted to Rs 64.23 crore followed closely by CPI(M) with Rs 60.53 crore and BSP with Rs 48.60 crore.

“A comparison of total donations declared by the parties in their IT 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 crores (59%) of the total donations to national parties was collected during 2013-14 from donors whose details are not available in the public domain,” the report said. 

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