At a time when various political parties are looking at ways to form a Congress-free alliance and are attempting to spread their influence, the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) has surpassed the grand old party in terms of annual income during 2021-22 to be at the second position after the BJP, Election Commission data shows.
During 2021-22, Mamata Banerjee’s party’s annual income was Rs 545.74 crore, a little more than that of the Congress which received Rs 541.27 crore. The annual audit reports of political parties were made public by the Election Commission of India (ECI) this week.
There are eight national parties in India: BJP, Congress, TMC, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M), and National People’s Party (NPP). Collectively, the national parties earned Rs 3,289.28 crore during 2021-22.
It is important to note that the income of these parties is not fixed and is a sum of the donations, collections, fees, and subscriptions gathered by them in a financial year.
BJP earned more than collective income of 7 national parties
The total income of seven national parties, excluding the BJP, during 2021-22 was Rs 1,372.16, while the Bharatiya Janata Party alone bagged Rs 1,917.12 crore.
Out of the BJP’s total income, the highest share is of voluntary contributions worth Rs 1,775 crore. This also includes electoral bonds worth Rs 1,033 crore. Electoral bonds account for over 50 per cent of the BJP’s total income. The party has gathered Rs 6.31 crore through fees and subscriptions.
Last year, when the parties declared their contribution in excess of Rs 20,000 in 2021-22, the BJP was at the top with the highest amount of donation — Rs 614.52 crore. The amount received by the BJP is nearly four times that collected by the remaining parties.
TMC’s income jumped by 90 times since 2017
The TMC, which turned 25 this year on January 1, earned just Rs 5.16 crore during 2017-18. The next year, this amount increased to Rs 192.65 crore. For the next two years, the income of the party dropped. In 2019-20, the ruling party in West Bengal got Rs 144.73 crore while the following year, the figure was just Rs 74.41 crore. Jumping more than seven times from the previous year, the TMC’s income in 2021-22 stood at 545.74 crore.
It is also important to note that it was in 2021 that West Bengal went to polls and Mamata was re-elected in May that year. The funds collected by the party in 2021-22 were more than what it had collected between 2014-15 and 2020-21, i.e., Rs 469.93 crore.
BJP earning more than Congress for years
The ECI numbers since 2013-14 analysed by News18 also show that the BJP had been earning more than the Congress each year except in 2015-16. That year, the BJP got Rs 570.85 crore, just Rs 22 crore short of the Congress which netted Rs 593.31 crore.
The gap between the earnings of the two parties was the highest in 2019-20 when the BJP earned Rs 2,941 crore more than the Congress. A year later, in 2020-21, the difference between the incomes of the two parties was the lowest since 2013-14, at Rs 467 crore.
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