Top 15 parties deposited Rs 167 crore during note ban, BSP tops list, shows data

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) made the highest cash deposit among political parties during 50 days of demonetisation, reveals data analysis by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and the Income Tax department (I-T).

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) made the highest cash deposit among political parties during 50 days of demonetisation, reveals data analysis by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and the Income Tax department (I-T).

The top 15 national and regional political parties deposited Rs 167 crore during demonetisation, data accessed by HT has revealed. (Arvind Yadav/HT file for representation)

The top 15 national and regional political parties deposited Rs 167 crore during demonetisation, data accessed by HT has revealed. Besides Rs 104 crore cash deposit by the BSP, other 14 parties have put Rs 63 crore of banned currencies.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi yanked the two bank notes — Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 — out of circulation to drain illegal cash from the economy and announced a 50-day window to deposit or exchange the banned currency.

Senior finance ministry sources said nearly all of the Rs 15.44 trillion in circulation returned to the government chest.

A senior official in one of the two agencies cited above said, “There are as many as 250 political parties registered in India but most of them are on paper. They will be separately analysed. Our present analysis covered all the six national parties and nine regional parties that are in power in their respective states.”

The official requested anonymity citing the sensitivity of the information. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress deposited Rs 4.75 crore and Rs 3.2 crore from various parts of India, while others ranged between Rs 80 lakh to Rs 3 crore, he said.

The criterion followed by FIU and I-T covered mainstream political parties such as BJP, Congress, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), AIADMK, Samajwadi Party (SP) and Trinamool Congress (TMC).

However, it excluded parties such as AIADMK’s rival DMK, Shiv Sena in Maharashtra and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD).

Former chief election commissioner TS Krishnamurthy said the information was no indication of cash holding by political parties. He was also critical of the budget announcement of electoral bond, which was introduced to clean up political funding. “I have heard one political party in Uttar Pradesh distributed money among candidates to convert, so this is no indication of cash held by parties. The electoral bonds only give anonymity to donors and not bring in transparency. As a nation, we should demand transparency of funding,” Krishnamurthy said.

Read: Demonetisation: How govt rules changed as chaos increased