Samjwadi Party richest regional party: Report

As per a report covering 32 regional parties, Samajwadi Party (SP) of Uttar Pradesh was found to be the richest with an income of Rs 82.76 crore, closely followed by Andhra Pradesh's Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Tamil Nadu's All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK).

The report published by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) analysed the total income and expenditure incurred, all over India, by the regional parties during 2016-17, as declared by the parties in their IT Returns submitted to the ECI.

The SP constituted 25.78 percent of the total income of all 32 regional parties, while TDP with an income of Rs 72.92 crore formed 22.71 percent, and AIADMK with an income of Rs 48.88 crore formed 15.23 percent of the total income.

Top three regional parties that incurred the highest expenditure are SP that spent Rs 147.1 crore, followed by AIADMK which spent Rs 86.77 crore and DMK which spent Rs 85.66 crore.

Out of 48 regional parties considered, 16 regional parties could not be analysed as they did not submit their audit reports to the Election Commission, till the date of preparation of the ADR report, that is, October 31, 2017. Some of these include major parties like Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

The ADR reports also observed that AIMIM and Janta Dal Secular had more than 87 percent of their total income remaining unspent while TDP had 67 percent of its income remaining unspent for 2016-17.

On the other hand, DMK declared spending Rs 81.88 crore more than its income, and SP and AIADMK declared spending Rs 64.34 crore and Rs 37.89 crore more than their total income, respectively.