National and regional parties collected a total of Rs 1503.21 crore and incurred a total expenditure of Rs 494.36 crore towards the five state assembly elections held in 2017, observed the Association for Democratic Reforms in its analysis of funds collected and expenditure Incurred by political parties in the five state assembly elections that were held last year.
In 2017, the elections had been held in Goa, Manipur, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.
ADR considered seven national parties and 16 regional parties for the report, which said that total funds collected by the national parties during the five state assembly elections held in 2017 was Rs 1314.29 crore and total expenditure incurred by the national parties was Rs 328.66 cr.
Of the 16 regional parties which contested in the five state assembly elections, AIFB, JKNPP, NPP, PDA, RLSP and RSP have not submitted their election expenditure statements for any of the assembly elections that they contested in.
Based on the details provided, the regional parties collected a total of Rs 188.92 crore and incurred an expenditure of Rs 165.7 crore.
The report said that the national parties spent a total of Rs 189.46 crore on publicity while the regional parties declared a total of Rs 110.77 crore under the same head.
Expenditure incurred by both national and regional parties on publicity forms 56% of the total expenditure while the expenditure under three other heads, put together forms 44% of the total expenses.
While national parties spent Rs 79.23 crore on travel expenses, the regional parties incurred Rs 31.463 crore under the same head.
The national parties declared giving Rs 75.12 crore to their candidates for election expenditure; the regional parties spent only Rs 22.62 crore on their candidates.
The ADR report went on to say that the national parties spent the maximum on media advertisement (Rs 133.33 crore), followed by expenditure on Publicity Materials (Rs 28.13 crore) and Public Meeting (Rs 27.98 crore).
The regional parties too spent the maximum under the head of Media Advertisement (Rs 74.675 crore), followed by expenditure on Publicity Materials (Rs 35.2 crore) and Public Meeting (Rs 0.91 crore).
Regional parties spent Rs 7.07 crore more than National parties on Publicity materials.
The National parties spent 94.55% of their total travel expenses or Rs 74.91 crore on their star campaigners and only 5.45% or Rs 4.32 crore on travel of their party leaders.
Regional parties spent 93.77% of their total travel expenses of Rs 29.51 crore on their star campaigners and the remaining 6.23% or Rs 1.96 crore on travel of their party leaders.
INC, NCP and CPM are the three national parties whose state units have collected more funds than their Central Headquarters. INC has received Rs 62.09 crore from its state units, followed by Rs 0.61 crore received by state units of NCP and Rs 0.465 crore by CPM.
The national and regional parties, together, had left Rs 47.04 crore ‘remaining unpaid’ which formed 9.52% of the total expenditure of Rs 494.36 crore.
AITC is the only national party that has incurred no expenditure either at the central or at the state unit level despite contesting in Manipur and Punjab Assembly elections.
Despite contesting in three assembly elections (Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand), Shiv Sena declared that the party incurred no expenditure towards their election campaign in the states.
BJP spent the highest amount of Rs 152.63 crore or 60.42% of its total expenditure on publicity while INC spent the highest on lump sum amount paid to candidates (Rs 39.83 crore) which formed 53.64% of its total expenditure.
