Date
City
Panjim
Any doubts as to which is the richest party in Goa were laid to rest when information released by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) showed that between 2010 to 2015, Congress showed the highest donations above Rs 20,000 aggregating to Rs 5.55 crore from 23 donations.
For the same period, BJP declared collecting donations of above Rs 20,000 and above from Goa amounting to Rs 5.10 cr. NCP received Rs 3 cr from Goa and CPI declared only Rs 55 lakh as donations received from Goa donors.
MGP has not declared its donations statements for four years between the financial years 2010-11 and 2013-14, but its total stood at Rs 1.81 cr. The party submitted its donations details (above Rs 20,000) to the ECI for only one financial year. AAP declared that the party received Rs 4 lakh from 23 donations from Goa in the past two financial years.
Pertinently, while in 2011-12, the year Assembly elections were held Congress received Rs 4.8 cr as donations, while BJP showed donations of Rs 1.92. BJP came to power that year and has seen a rise in its donations while Congress slipped. In 2014-15 BJP received Rs 2.04 cr as donations and Congress Rs 75 lakh.
ADR Goa State Coordinator Bhasker Assoldekar, addressing the media, said the information was obtained via RTI from the Income Tax Department, Delhi. ADR has collected copies of ITRs and donations from IT Departments and Election Commission of India (ECI) for the financial years 2010-11 to 2014-15.
“We will obtain the data for financial year 2015-16 very shortly as the last date of filing returns with the Income Tax Department for political parties is September 30 and the data is being collated now,” Assoldekar said.
Apart from collecting donations/voluntary contributions, from the IT returns it is seen that political parties collect funds by issuing coupons in lieu of receipts to donors for cash contributions, making it difficult to establish the identity of the donor.
“It is possible that a lot of cash donations received remain unaccounted for in the books of accounts as only those amounts would be recorded for which a receipt has been issued. Thus, it is imperative to have a strict regulatory mechanism wherein political parties have to report the correct quantum and the source of donations received,” ADR said.
The report added that the income of political parties, nationwide, between 2010 and 2015 calculated from their IT returns shows BJP with the highest declared income of Rs 2445.87 cr, closely followed by Congress whose total income during the same period was Rs 2280.43 cr. CPI has declared the lowest income of Rs 9.03 cr between FY 2010-11 and 2014-15, while NCP declared an income of Rs 213.77 cr. AAP declared Rs 110.05 cr as income from all over India in last five financial years.