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.
The income of parties is calculated on the basis of donations, collections, fees, and subscriptions gathered by them in a financial year.
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.
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.
