Between 2016-18, BJP Received Rs 915 Crore from Corporate Donations, Highest Among Parties: Report

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received Rs 915.59 crore from 1,731 corporate donors during 2016-18, highest among national parties, according to a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). While the BJP’s share is 93% of total Rs 985.18 crore corporate donations to national parties during the period, Congress got about 5.6% or Rs 55.36 crore from 151 corporate donors, followed by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) with Rs 7.7 crore from 23 such donors.

ADR analysed the details of donors who made donations worth more than Rs 20,000 submitted by political parties to the Election Commission of India. It considered parties BJP, Congress, NCP, Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) for this report. Another national party, BSP, was not considered for the analysis in this report, as the party has declared that it received no voluntary contributions above Rs 20,000 from any donor since 2004.

With Rs 4 Lakh donations, CPI recorded lowest such donations. As per ADR, CPI(M) received Rs 4.42 crore and Trinamool Congress received Rs 2.03 crore as donations during 2016-18.

Prudent or Satya Electoral Trust was the top donor to both the BJP and Congress, amounting to Rs 429.42 crore during 2016-18. Of this, the BJP declared receipt of Rs 405.52 crore in 33 donations while Congress was the recipient of Rs 23.90 crore in 13 donations.

Top three states from where maximum corporate donations were received during 2016-18 were Delhi (Rs 481.37 crore), Maharashtra (Rs 176.88 crore) and Karnataka (Rs 43.184 crore).

From corporate donations, national parties received Rs 82.04 crore in 2012-13, Rs 224.61 crore in 2013-14, Rs 573.18 crore in 2014-15, Rs 76.94 crore in 2015-16, Rs 563.19 crore and Rs 421.9 crore in 2017-18.

Categorisation of donors

Based on their business types, ADR divided corporate contributions into 15 categories including electoral trusts of companies, manufacturing, power and oil, mining, construction, exports or imports and real estate among others.

In financial years 2016-17 and 2017-18, electoral trusts were the biggest donors, real estate sector was the second highest contributor in 2016-17, contributing Rs 49.94 crore. In 2017-18, manufacturing sector was the second highest contributor with Rs 74.744 crore.

Of the total corporate donations received by national parties between 2016-18, Rs 22.59 crore was received from ‘unsegregated category’, which includes companies with no details available online or those nature of whose work is not known.

Furthermore, the report says that 916 donations – through which national parties received Rs 120.14 crore – do not have address details. Among these donations, 98.77% or Rs 118.66 crore came to BJP from donors whose addresses are not specified. For example, the BJP received amount Rs 11 crore from New Democratic Electoral Trust and Rs 10 crore from Cadila Healthcare Limited during the period. But the address details of these donors were not provided in the submissions.

Also, about Rs 2.59 crore from 76 corporate donations do not have PAN details in the contribution forms submitted to the ECI.

Through corporate donations, national parties received Rs 82.04 crore in 2012-13, Rs 224.61 crore in 2013-14, Rs 573.18 crore in 2014-15, Rs 76.94 crore in 2015-16, Rs 563.19 crore and Rs 421.9 crore in 2017-18.