Banerjee has always insisted that Trinamool is a financially weak party and she runs it by selling her books and paintings. She has even commented that BJP is a rich party who can buy votes with their money power. Her words have now been proved true when the political parties submitted their income tax returns to Election Commission.
According to rules, all the registered political parties have to submit their audited income tax returns to the Commission by October 30 every year. A voluntary organisation called ‘Association of Democratic Reforms’ have prepared a report after getting information from the Commission about every political party.
In the report it is clear that Trinamool’s income is peanuts compared to that of BJP. Even CPM’s income was twenty times that of Trinamool. According to the report Trinamool earned a little over 5 crores in the financial year 2017-18 which is less by more than 1 crore than the last financial year. In the same period, even after being thrown out of power from Bengal and Tripura, CPM has earned over 104 crores. But BJP’s net earnings surpassed all the other political parties. In 2017-18, BJP has declared income of 1027 crores. It is also clear from the report that CPM, even though they are not in power in Bengal spends way more than Trinamool. They revealed that they have spent more than 83 crores in the last financial year.
Also in this context, Congress did not submit their audit report till 48 days after October 30. BJP submitted their report after 24 days. But Trinamool Congress submitted their on 24th September.