Tracking funds: While BJP splurged on ads, guess what Congress used money for

Six national parties together registered a total income of Rs 991.2 crore in 2012-13, while they spent Rs 648.7 crore, according to data compiled by think tankAssociation for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which analysed the IT returns and donations reports parties submitted for the Financial Year 2012-13.

India’s two biggest partiestwo biggest parties - Congress and BJP- together accounted for over Rs 749 crore of the income earned.BSP declared a total incomeof Rs 87.63 crore, NCP declared Rs 26.56 cr, CPI Rs.1.07 cr and CPM declaredRs 126.09 cr for FY 2012-13.

[caption id=“attachment_89016” align=“aligncenter” width=“600”]  Source:ADR[/caption]

Of the total expenses, Congress spent the maximum on administrative and general expenses (Rs 206.99 crore) followed by election expenditure (Rs 89.95 crore) and employee cost (Rs 10.63 crore).

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On the other hand, the maximum expenditure of BJP has been towards advertisement & publicity (Rs.131.87 crore followed bytravelling (Rs 36.62 crore) and meetings (Rs 10.08 crore).

So in percentage share, Congress spent 65.89 per cent of its total expenditure of Rs 314.16 crore onadministrative expenses while BJP spent 59.03 per cent of a total of Rs 223.38 crore on advertisement and publicity.

Expenses towards tours and travel (Rs 1.76 crore), organisational expenses (Rs 1.71 crore) and building repair and maintenance (Rs 1.08 crore) are the top three items of expenditure for BSP during FY 2012-13.

BSP spent 20.29 per cent of its total expenditure of Rs 8.67 crore on tours and travel for elections while CPM spent25.14 per cent on salaries and allowances. NCP spent 30.58 per cent on election expenses and CPI spent 36.21 per cent of its totalexpenditure on salaries and allowances.

Check out the total break up of expenses by political parties below

[caption id=“attachment_89018” align=“aligncenter” width=“600”]  Source:ADR[/caption]

And while Congress’ earnings came from sale of coupons (73%) of its total income, BJP’s income was from voluntary contributions which constituted 83%.

[caption id=“attachment_89020” align=“aligncenter” width=“600”]  Source: ADR[/caption]