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The declared assets of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) jumped by 627 percent from Rs 122.93 crore to over Rs 893 crore between 2004-05 and 2015-16, according to an analysis by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
During the same period, the total assets of Congress increased from Rs 167.35 crore to Rs 758.79 crore, signifying an increase of 353.41 per cent.
The report, titled 'Analysis of Assets and Liabilities of National Parties – FY 2004-05 to 2015-16' was released on Monday, 16 October, by the ADR and the West Bengal Election Watch. Data from audited accounts submitted by seven political parties to the Income Tax Department and the Election Commission of India was used for the analysis.
Assets and liabilities declared by the BJP, Indian National Congress (INC), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), and All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) between 2004-05 and 2015-16 fiscals were taken into consideration for the report.
In the 11-year period for which the parties were assessed, the Congress had more assets than the BJP till the 2014-2015 financial year, which was the period that the BJP-led government came to power.
According to BJP spokesperson Gopal Agarwal, the rise in income is a manifestation of the party’s campaign to usher transparency in funding. “Donations are being received in cheques, and we are building offices in each district and raising corpus that will provide interest for meeting party expenditure. All tax returns are duly filed, and we have decided to operate a single centralised bank account to ensure transparency in donations,” Hindustan Times quoted Agarwal as saying.
The report said the CPI-M and AITC are the only two national parties to show a "steady increase" in their annual declared assets.
The assets declared by national parties fall under six major heads: fixed assets, loans and advances, FDR/ deposits, TDS, investments and other assets.
During 2004-05, the national parties declared maximum assets under FDR/deposits which amounted to Rs 183.442 crore.
During 2015-16, the highest asset category is 'other assets' under which the parties have declared holding Rs 1,605.114 crore, which formed 59 per cent of the total assets declared under various heads by the parties.
The seven national parties declared a total of Rs 47.77 crore as liabilities during FY 2004-05, an average of Rs 6.82 crore per party.
During that period, the CPI-M declared highest liabilities of Rs 20.285, crore followed by the BJP at Rs 14.298 crore.
The CPI-M is the only party to declare a decrease in liabilities, which went down to Rs 5.14 crore in FY 2015-16.
(With inputs from IANS and Hindustan Times.)
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