New Delhi: A recent report by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) has uncovered the assets and liabilities of major political parties in India in the financial years 2016-2017 and 2017-2018. The report takes into account the financial submissions of these parties as it did in its previous report dated October 16, 2017.
For this report, ADR has compiled a comprehensive analysis of seven national political parties namely, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Indian National Congress (INC), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India [Marxist] (CPIM), and Trinamool Congress (TMC). Political parties in the country fall under the non-commercial, non-industrial or non-business entity. Therefore, standard accounting formats issued by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) do not apply to political parties.
Decline:
Out of the seven major parties, only two witnessed a steady decline in their total number of assets. While Congress saw a decline from ₹ 854.75 crore to ₹724.35 crore between financial years 2016-17 and 2017-18, NCP's assets fell from ₹11.41 crore to ₹9.54 crore in the same period of time.
Ascent:
Out of all of the parties, the ruling BJP reported the highest increase in its total number of assets. The party's assets grew from ₹1,213.13 crore in 2016-17 to ₹1,483.35 crore in 2017-18. This amounts to an increase of about 22 per cent. The party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was followed by Mayawati's BSP which also reported an increase in its assets from ₹680.63 crore to ₹716.72 crore.