Tamil Nadu's DMK leads income & expenditure lists of 31 regional parties in 2020-21: ADR

GUWAHATI: Dravidar Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) led by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Stalin topped the income and expenditure lists of 31 regional parties in the financial year of 2020-21, revealed a report by election watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) on Friday.

The income of DMK was alone Rs. 150 crore as against the total income of Rs 529 crore of all the regional parties.

While the income of DMK was Rs 150 crore, the expenditure of the party was around Rs 218 crore. DMK was also the party that reported the highest increase in expenditure by Rs 85 crore this year.

After DMK, the next party to report an increase in the income was JD (U) and YSRC for the financial year 2020-21.

In the highest income, DMK's share was at 28% followed by YSRC with 20% and BJD with 13% of overall income.

In the highest expenditure, DMK topped the list by spending Rs 218. 49 crore followed by TDP with Rs 54.769 crore, AIADMK with Rs 42.37 crore and JDU with Rs 24.35 crore, said the report.

However, YSRC topped the list with the maximum unspent amount. The party has kept 99% of the income unspent followed by BJD with 90% and AIMIM with 88% of unspent income.

Meanwhile, five regional parties have declared that they received Rs 250.60 crore through electoral bonds in 2020-21.

The total income of top 5 parties amounted to Rs. 434.255 crore, which comprised 82.03% of the total income of the political parties analysed, collectively.

Reports of the 23 regional parties for FY 2020-21 are unavailable on the website of the ECI at the time of preparation of this report. These include some major political parties like AJSU, RJD, SP, BPF, JKNC, and AIUDF etc.