TDP richest regional party in 2024 25, TMC ranked second: See top 10 parties

N Chandrababu Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress emerged as the country’s richest regional political parties in FY 2024-25, according to a new report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which also flagged that several parties spent more money than they earned during the year.

ADR’s analysis of income and expenditure statements filed by regional parties showed that TDP declared the highest income of ₹228.315 crore, accounting for 19.14% of the total income reported by 36 regional parties.

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The TMC, which lost the recent Assembly elections, followed closely with ₹219.3538 crore, while Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSR Congress reported income of ₹140.386 crore.

The report said the total income declared by the 36 regional parties stood at ₹1,192.944 crore in FY 2024-25. However, their combined expenditure touched ₹1,433.068 crore – ₹240.124 crore more than their total income.

Among the biggest spenders, YSR Congress topped the list with expenditure of ₹340.203 crore, far exceeding its declared income. Naveen Patnaik’s BJD spent ₹288.44 crore, TMC ₹227.5989 crore and BRS ₹180.599 crore.

ADR said 21 out of the 36 regional parties that filed audit reports spent more than their total income during the financial year. “YSR-Congress has declared spending the highest amount of Rs 199.817 cr or 142.33% more than its income,” the report noted.

The report also showed a sharp decline in the total income of regional parties compared to the previous year. Combined income fell from ₹2,463.175 crore in FY 2023-24 to ₹1,192.944 crore in FY 2024-25 – a drop of 51.57% or ₹1,270.231 crore.

While 19 parties reported a rise in income, 17 saw a decline.

Among the other parties listed, AIADMK declared income of Rs 86.237 crore and expenditure of Rs 50.381 crore, and Pawan Kalyan’s Janasena Party reported income of Rs 64.107 crore and expenditure of Rs 56.944 crore.

Raj Thackeray’s MNS declared income of Rs 60.784 crore and expenditure of Rs 24.516 crore, JMM reported income of Rs 37.257 crore and expenditure of Rs 11.834 crore, while CPI declared income of Rs 29.792 crore and expenditure of Rs 28.822 crore.

ADR also highlighted delays in the submission of annual audit reports. Of the 67 recognised regional parties, only 15 submitted their reports on time. Twenty-one parties delayed submissions by up to 96 days, while audit reports of 31 parties were still unavailable on the Election Commission website, even 207 days after the deadline.

Major parties whose audit reports were unavailable included DMK, NCP, Shiv Sena, Shiv Sena (UBT) and JKNC.

The report further showed that TDP retained more than ₹166.985 crore of its income as unspent funds, the highest among all parties analysed. MNS and AIADMK followed with unspent income of ₹36.268 crore and ₹35.856 crore, respectively.

The top five regional parties together accounted for nearly 69% of the total income and more than 77% of the total expenditure reported by all parties analysed in the ADR study.