HYDERABAD: While the TDP was dealt a major blow in the Telangana Assembly elections held in December last year, the yellow party, however, has reported a substantial revenue than the expenditure it incurred during those polls.
Apart from spending a major amount on “kanduvas, flags and caps”, the party after two months of electioneering ended up with Rs 36.4 crore in its kitty. On the other hand, the party spent a little over Rs 37 lakh. As per the election expenditure report submitted to the Election Commission of India (ECI) recently, the party spent a majority of Rs 37 lakh towards travel of its star campaigners, including TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu, MLA N Balakrishna and TDP politburo member R Chandrasekhar Reddy. The yellow party incurred expenses of Rs 6.7 lakh towards travelling of its star campaigners across the state for electioneering. In that Rs 1.57 lakh was exclusively spent to ferry Naidu in the chopper. It may be noted that Chandrababu Naidu extensively campaigned in Hyderabad and Khammam.
Expenses were also shown for advertisements, mostly print media, to the tune of Rs 8.1 lakh. Interestingly, the party incurred its highest expenditure of around Rs 20 lakh through the purchase of publicity materials - “kanduvas, flags and caps”.
The expenses seem to have translated in the party gaining nothing as the two seats - Satupalle and Aswaraopeta Assembly constituencies - it won are now with the TRS. The legislators from the two constituencies Sandra Venkata Veeriah of Sathupalle and M Nageswara Rao have already expressed their desire to join the pink party.
Interestingly, the party seem to have gained at least through “membership fee....” and “voluntary contributions.”
The yellow party received Rs 1.1 crore in “cash” during the Assembly election period of October 6, 2018, and December 13, 2018. The party received Rs 35.2 crore through cheques and demand draft in the form of “membership fee, electoral bonds, voluntary contributions and interest on deposits.”
Currently, the party seem to have more than Rs 100 crore deposited in various bank accounts in Hyderabad. As per the closing balance, the party mentioned that it has Rs 107 crore of bank balance which includes fixed deposits.