Even spending on tours of other leaders is also very negligible. As per the analysis of funds collected and expenditure incurred by political parties in the five state Assembly elections in 2017 - Goa, Manipur, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh - conducted by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), national and regional parties collected Rs. 1503.21 crore and spent Rs. 494.36 crore.

Of this amount, they spent as much as 56 per cent on publicity alone. The national parties spent 94.55 per cent of their total travel expenses or Rs. 74.91 crore on their star campaigners and only 5.45 per cent or Rs. 4.32 crore on travel of their party leaders.

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

The BJP spent the highest amount of Rs. 152.63 crore or 60.42 per cent of its total expenditure on publicity while INC spent the highest on lump sum amount paid to candidates (Rs. 39.83 cr) which formed 53.64 per cent of its total expenditure.

The national parties spent a total of Rs. 189.46 crore on publicity while the regional parties declared a total of Rs. 110.77 crore under the same head. While national parties spent Rs. 79.23 crore on travel expenses, the regional parties incurred Rs. 31.463 crore under the same head.

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

The national parties spent the maximum on media advertisements (Rs. 133.33 crore), followed by expenditure on publicity material (Rs. 28.13 crore) and public meetings (Rs. 27.98 crore).

The regional parties too spent the maximum under the head of media advertisements (Rs. 74.675 crore), followed by expenditure on publicity material (Rs. 35.2 crore) and public meetings (Rs. 0.91 crore). Regional parties spent Rs. 7.07 crore more than the national parties on publicity material.