The national and regional parties collected Rs 1,503 crore and incurred an expenditure of Rs 494.36 crore towards the elections held in the five states in 2017.

A report by the Association for Democratic Reforms states that the total funds collected by the national parties during the five state Assembly elections held in 2017 was Rs 1314.29 cr and total expenditure incurred by them 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 cr and incurred an expenditure of Rs 165.7 cr.

The national parties spent a total of Rs 189.46 cr on publicity while the regional parties declared a total of Rs 110.77 cr under the same head.

While national parties spent Rs 79.23 cr on travel expenses, the regional parties incurred Rs 31.463 cr under the same head.

National parties declared giving Rs 75.12 cr to their candidates for election expenditure; the regional parties spent only Rs 22.62 cr on their candidates.

Expenditure on Publicity by National and Regional Parties:

National and regional Parties are required to segregate their publicity expenses under three heads: Media advertisement, Publicity materials and Public meetings.

The national parties spent the maximum on Media Advertisement (Rs 133.33 cr), followed by expenditure on Publicity Materials (Rs 28.13 cr) and Public Meeting (Rs 27.98 cr).

The regional parties too spent the maximum under the head of Media Advertisement (Rs 74.675 cr), followed by expenditure on Publicity Materials (Rs 35.2 cr) and Public Meeting (Rs 0.91 cr).

Expenditure on travel by National and Regional Parties:

The 'Travel' head is segregated into travel expenses incurred specifically on star campaigners and that of the party leaders.

The national parties spent 94.55% of their total travel expenses or Rs 74.91 cr on their star campaigners and only 5.45% or Rs 4.32 cr on travel of their party leaders.

Regional parties spent 93.77% of their total travel expenses of Rs 29.51 cr on their star campaigners and the remaining 6.23% or Rs 1.96 cr on travel of their party leaders.

Observations of ADR:

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 cr from its state units, followed by Rs 0.61 cr received by state units of NCP and Rs 0.465 cr by CPM.

The National and Regional parties, together, had left Rs 47.04 cr 'remaining unpaid' which formed 9.52% of the total expenditure of Rs 494.36 cr.

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 3 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 cr or 60.42% of its total expenditure on publicity while INC spent the highest on lumpsum amount paid to candidates (Rs 39.83 cr) which formed 53.64% of its total expenditure.