Hyderabad: Three major regional parties – TRS, TDP and YSR Congress – in Telangana and neighboring Andhra Pradesh have received the main section of their funds from the ‘Unknown source’ in 2019-20, the Democratic Reform Association (ADR) said in a report.
ADR, an NGO working in the field of election and political reform, said the total revenue of regional parties from unknown sources reached Rs 446 Crore, which was 55 percent of their total income in 2019-20.
The overall income of 25 regional political parties in the financial year is Rs 803 Crore.
NGOs said the top regional parties that add most of their income from unknown sources were TRS at RS 89 Crore, TDP RS 81.6 Crore, Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRC RS 74.7 Crore, Naveen Patnai’s Biju Janata Dal Rs 50.5 Crore and MK DMK Stalin Rs 45.5 Crore.
“Analysis of Returns of Income Tax and Donation Statement submitted with the Election Commission shows that the sources remain unknown.
At present, political parties are not required to reveal individual names or organizations that provide less than Rs 20,000.
As a result, a large number of funds cannot be traced and comes from sources ‘unknown’, “said ADR.
Of the 53 regional parties, only 28 who submitted their annual audit reports and contributions, he said.
16 The remaining parties have not sent one of the reports.
None of the two regional nine-party reports are available on the ECI website.
Audit reports and annual contributions about regional parties such as AAP, Lok Jansakti Party (Bihar) and iUML are available on the website, but party donation declarations show differences for the 2019-20 financial year.
“These parties have not been analyzed in the report,” ADR said.