In Last Two Years, BJP Raised Rs 915 Crore in Donations While Congress Received Rs 55.36 Crore: ADR

In the past few years, the BJP not only managed to garner the maximum number of votes but also the maximum money from those who donated to political parties, according to a recent report published by Association for Democratic Reforms, India (ADR).

According to the report, the six national parties have received the total funding of Rs 1059 crore from various sources. The corporate houses donated a total of Rs.985.18 crore during 2016-18, which accounts for the 93 per cent of total donations received by the national parties. The leftover 7 per cent or Rs 74 crore came from unknown sources.

Of this total amount, the BJP has received the maximum donations of Rs 915 crore, which is 86.4 per cent of the total donations in the last two years. Congress stood at second on the list with just Rs 55.36 crore while the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) secured the third spot with Rs 7.73 crore funds.

The report has considered the national parties – BJP, Congress, NCP, CPI (Communist Party of India), CPM (Communist Party of India – Marxist), AITC (All India Trinamool Congress) and BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party) for the study.

Though BSP is a national party, they declared that they have not received any voluntary contribution above Rs 20,000 in the above mentioned period. As per the rules, political parties need to declare donations worth more than Rs 20,000.

Between FY 2012-13 and 2017-18, donations from corporates to National Parties increased four-fold from Rs 82.04 crore to Rs 421.99 crore, the report said. There was a major drop in the percentage of corporate donations in FY 2015-16. In the last six years, from 2012 to 2018, BJP has received a maximum of Rs 1621.40 crore in funding, which constitutes 83.4 per cent of the total funding.

In the last two years, Prudent Satya electoral trust made the biggest donations to Congress and BJP. They have donated Rs 429 crore in total out of which Rs 405.5 crore went to the BJP while the rest Rs 23.9 was given to Congress. Among the top 10 corporate donors, five are electoral trusts while the rest are corporate companies.

Almost half of the funds have come from the various electoral trusts in the last two years. Manufacturing, Real Estate, and Mining & Export-Import were the other top donors with the share of 12.2 per cent, 9.2 per cent and 6.5 per cent, respectively.

A total of 347 donations amounting to Rs 22.59 crore have been made out to six national parties from unidentified sources. The contact and address details of most of these companies were unavailable in cases where they were visible online, mentioned the ADR report.