TRS second richest regional party with Rs 301 Cr worth assets: ADR 2019-20 report

Hyderabad: The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in power, is the second richest regional party in the financial year ending March 2020. The total assets of the ruling TRS including fixed deposits, investments and others, stands at Rs 301.407 Crore. While the Samajwadi Party (SP) tops the charts with Rs 563.47 Cr, the highest declared by any regional party.

The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), an election watch body based in New Delhi, has studied the assets and liabilities of National and Regional political parties registered with the Election Commission of India. The report concludes that, The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party for another consecutive year, holds a whopping Rs 4,847.78 Crore worth assets. It is pertinent to note that, the wealth of all the other national parties, i.e Bahujan Samaj Party, Indian National Congress party (INC), NCP, CPM and CPI, together do not sum up to that of the BJP.

The total assets declared by the 7 National and 44 Regional Parties for the year 2019-20 amounted to Rs 6988.57 Cr and Rs 2129.38 Cr, respectively, ADR's report said.

TRS's wealth:

Party's supremo K ChandraShekar Rao led TRS party, recently celebrated its 20 years of existence. From a handful of MLAs and minuscule party presence all through the TDP and Congress regime, to becoming an undisputed party for the consecutive party, the TRS has come a long way. Notably, it gained political and financial muscle post 2014, the year it came to power. A high stack of TRS's wealth comes from electoral bonds - 'unidentified sources', followed by individual's contributions, party membership fee and immovable assets.

While the country was witnessing its first lockdown in 2020, TRS received Rs 130.46 Cr funding, which constituted 14.86% of the total income of all the regional parties. A document accessed by NewsMeter revealed that TRS's major income came from 'unknown' or 'undisclosed' sources. The breakup of funds indicated that 68.34% of TRS funds were raised via electoral bonds which is categorised as 'unknown'.

According to the latest report on total assets, out of the Rs 301.407 Cr worth movable and immovable assets, TRS has a reserve in the bank of Rs 256 Crore . With regard to liabilities, the pink party has 'zero' borrowing of cash however the financial statement shows a liability of Rs 4.4 Crore.

How a party's wealth is calculated:

Every political party is asked to submit its yearly contribution, audit and expenditure reports to the Election Commission of India. The assets which includes Fixed deposits, investments, funding sums up the assets.

It is significant to note, Political parties- National and regional, have multiple sources of funding. The channel's contribution includes electoral trust, electoral bonds, individual funders, party subscription and more. The sources are further categorised as 'known' and 'unknown'.

What are known and unknown sources?

Association for Democratic Reforms defines known sources as donations above and below Rs 20,000, whose donor details are available through contribution reports as submitted by regional parties to the Election Commission of India.

While unknown sources are income declared in the Annual Audit reports but without giving source of income for donations below Rs. 20,000. Such includes 'Donations via Electoral Bonds', 'sale of coupons', 'relief fund', 'miscellaneous income', 'voluntary contributions', 'contribution from meetings/ morchas' .