As BJP President, Nitin Nabin will start with the strongest-ever war chest: Rs 10,000 crore in cash & cash equivalent in March-end 2025
Party spent Rs 3,335 crore in FY25 — 2.5 times FY20 — and ended the year with nearly Rs 10,000 crore in cash and cash equivalent
The Election Commission had announced the 2024 polls on March 16 that year, so campaigning had begun in the financial year 2023-2024 itself. AS BJP’s Nitin Nabin takes charge as the party president, he inherits a war chest that has continuously grown over the years. The party’s annual audit report submitted to the Election Commission recently shows that it is sitting on cash and cash equivalents of almost Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 9,996.12 crore, to be precise) as on March 31, 2025.
BJP ended the year with a closing balance of Rs 12,164.14 crore in its General Fund on March 31, 2025. The audited annual accounts report for 2024-25 showed that the party had Rs 9,996.12 crore in cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year, up from Rs 7,113.90 crore at the end of the previous year.
According to EC rules, all parties have to submit their annual audited accounts reports as well as the contribution reports, which cover all donations in excess of Rs 20,000 each. These reports are then made public by the EC on its website.
The report shows that BJP’s spending on election and general propaganda stood at Rs 3,335.36 crore in 2024-25 when elections to the 18th Lok Sabha and eight Assemblies were held. This is almost two-and-a-half times Rs 1,352.92 crore, the amount spent in 2019-20 when elections to the 17th Lok Sabha and seven Assemblies were held.
The Election Commission had announced the 2024 polls on March 16 that year, so campaigning had begun in the financial year 2023-2024 itself. The polling took place between April 19 to June 1, 2024, spanning 44 days. In the pre-election year, i.e., 2023-24, spending on election and general propaganda stood at Rs 1,754.06 crore.
Thus, the total expenditure in the two years (election year and the pre-election year) leading up to the 18th Lok Sabha and the eight Assemblies added up to Rs 5,089.42 crore, more than double the total amount of Rs 2,145.31 crore spent in the two years (election year and the pre-election year) leading up to the 17th Lok Sabha and seven Assemblies.
The Assembly elections during the years 2019-20 and 2024-25 were for the states of Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand, Odisha, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. In 2024-25, J&K went to polls in addition to the seven states.
According to the annual report, which was submitted by the BJP to the EC on December 27, 2025, and published by the EC this week, election expenses accounted for 88 per cent of the party’s total expenses (Rs.3,774.58 crore). Of the total expense on “election/general propaganda”, the report shows advertisements and publicity accounted for about 68 per cent of the spending, at Rs 2,257.05 crore. Out of that, spending on electronic media was the highest (Rs 1,124.96 crore), followed by Rs 897.42 crore on “advertisement”. The party also spent Rs 583.08 crore on travel via aircraft/helicopters, the report said. The party extended financial assistance to candidates to the tune of Rs 312.90 crore.
In the previous Lok Sabha election cycle, the BJP’s election spending had increased from Rs.792.39 crore in 2018-2019 to Rs 1,352.92 crore in 2019-2020.
The Congress, on the other hand, spent Rs 896.22 crore on contesting elections in 2024-2025, up from Rs 619.67 crore in 2023-2024, as per its annual report submitted to the EC last year.
The report also showed that the BJP’s total income in 2024-2025 grew from Rs 4,340.47 crore in 2023-2024 to Rs 6,769.14 crore. The majority of the party’s income came from voluntary contributions (Rs 6,124.85 crore), while the rest was from fees and subscriptions, interest from banks and other sources.
Though 2024-2025 was the first year after the Supreme Court scrapped the government’s anonymous political funding scheme, the Electoral Bond Scheme, donations to the BJP increased 54 per cent from the previous year’s Rs 3,967.14 crore. As per the BJP’s contribution report, which was published by the EC in December, electoral trusts had accounted for 61 per cent of all contributions to the party in 2024-2025.
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