The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) had the highest income and expenditure among South Indian political parties in 2021-22.
South First analysed the annual audit report submitted by the political parties to the Election Commission to draw this conclusion.
Out of the 54 political parties, the reports of only 22 parties are available on the Election Commission website.
Among the major South Indian parties, the audit report of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) is not available on the website.
Tamil Nadu’s ruling party, the DMK, showed an income of over ₹318 crore in 2021, while having an expenditure of ₹35 crore.
Meanwhile, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), which is now the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), had an income of ₹218 crore and an expenditure of around ₹28 crore.
DMK earned well from electoral bonds
A huge chunk of income for the DMK came from electoral bonds. The party managed to get around ₹306 crore of electoral-bond money in 2021-22.
It also managed to get ₹5.73 crore through party fees and subscriptions, while ₹4.38 crore came from fixed deposits and savings in the bank.
It also managed to get ₹28 lakh from its publication and ₹17 lakh from rent.
The party also garnered ₹50 lakh from the electoral trust. The Triumph Electoral Trust donated the money to the party, which came from the Tube Investment of India (The Murugappa Group).
Hyderabad-based Hetero Group, a pharmaceutical company, also donated ₹50 lakh to the party. Chennai-based VGP groups of companies chipped in with the same amount.
Out of its total expenditure of ₹35 crore, the party spent ₹31.5 crore for election while ₹2 crore was spent on administrative work.
TRS assets grew 66%
Assets of the BRS — which was the TRS during the reporting duration and will henceforth be referred to by that name in this article — grew from ₹288 crore in 2020-21 to ₹480 crore in 2021-22.
The party's income also increased from ₹37.6 crore in 2020-21 to ₹218 crore in 2021-22.
The majority of the income the party received was from electoral bonds. It received ₹153 crore worth of electoral-bond donations, while ₹40 crore came from the Electoral Trust.
The Prudent Electoral Trust, from where the party received the donations, witnessed contributions from major companies based out of Hyderabad, such as Hetero Drugs Limited, GMR Hyderabad Airport, and KMV Projects.
The party also received ₹90 lakh from individual donors and ₹3.75 lakh from general donors. It also got around ₹16 crore as interest from its fixed deposits, savings in banks, and income tax returns.
The party incurred an expense of around ₹28 crore, of which around ₹20 crore was spent for administrative purposes.
Also, ₹7.68 crore was spent on elections. Interestingly, the party paid ₹10 lakh as the property tax to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation.
YSRCP income down
The Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party, or the YSRCP — the ruling party of Andhra Pradesh — saw its income decrease from around ₹108 crore in 2020-21 to ₹93.7 crore in 2021-22.
The party's biggest source of income was electoral bonds. They fetched it ₹60 crore, while ₹20 crore came through the electoral trust.
The party managed to get around ₹13 crore from the fixed deposits and savings. It also managed to get around ₹2.6 lakh from general donations.
The party's expenditure in 2021-22 was ₹1 crore.
Other parties
Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu Opposition party AIADMK's income came to ₹25 crore in 2021-22.
The party got ₹12 crore from election forms distributed amongst its party candidates. The other big income source was fixed deposits and savings in banks: ₹12 crore.
The party spent around ₹28 crore in the year 2021-22.
The third-largest party in Karnataka — the Janata Dal (Secular) or the JD(S) — had an income of only ₹2 crore, mostly from donations which accounted for ₹1.3 crore.
The party spent ₹2.8 crore in the year 2021-22.
