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Date: 
10.03.2020
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As many as 32 political parties, including seven national parties have spent the highest of Rs 1495.41 crore on publicity, followed by Rs 567.19 crore on travel expenses, Rs 528.94 crore on lumpsum amounts paid to candidates and Rs 399.03 crore on other or miscellaneous expenses during the Lok Sabha polls in 2019.

According to a report prepared by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) on the basis of expenditure details submitted by the political parties to the Election Commission, these political parties have recollected Rs 6405.59 crore in 2019. Of them, a major chunk of Rs 5544.34 crore (86.55%) was received by seven political parties while 25 regional parties received Rs 861.25 crore (13.45%).

According to the report, political parties have declared their expenditure under the heads of publicity, travel expenses, other/miscellaneous expenses and lumpsum amounts paid to their contesting candidates. The expenditure on publicity is 49.94 percent of the overall expenditure declared under various heads while expensesincurred towards candidates constituted 17.67 percent of the totalexpenditure," it said.

The ADR report said the 32 political parties analyzed spent the maximum on media advertisement (Rs 1166.15 crore or 77.98 percent) followed by expenditure on publicity materials (Rs 222.1 crore or 14.85 percent) and public meetings (Rs 107.16 crore or7.17 per cent). Of the total expenditure of the 32 political parties on publicity, Rs 1223.71 cr or 81.83% percent was spent by the national parties and Rs 271.70 cr or 18.17% was spent by the regional parties.

On the travel expenses, the ADR has divided expenditure incurred by star campaigners and the party leaders.  Political parties have spent a total of Rs 567.19 crore on 'Travel'. Of this, national parties have spent Rs 487.33 cr (85.92 %) and regional parties spent Rs 79.86 cr (14.08%).

National and Regional political parties collectively spent 98.53% of their total travel expenses or Rs 558.88 crore on their star campaigners and the remaining 1.47% or Rs 8.31 crore on the travel of their party leaders.

The 32 national and regional parties together spent Rs 2591.39 crore during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, of which an expenditure of Rs 2004.99 crore (77.37%) was incurred by the seven national parties.

According to ADR, the election expenditure statements of 18 Regionalparties including DMDK, JD(S), RJD, JKNPP, RLD etc. for the 2019 LokSabha elections are unavailable on the website of ECI till date. Theexpenditure statements of IUML and SHS are not available for theAndhra Pradesh Assembly elections 2019.

"Regional Parties namely MGP, MPC and MNS submitted their election expenditure statements for the general elections despite not having contested the elections — as declared by them.

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