BJP got 80% of corporate donations among five national parties in 2018-19: ADR

The five national political parties received Rs 876.1 crore from 1,775 corporate donations in 2018-19, an analysis by election watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) has found. Around 92 per cent of this contribution to political parties is from known sources, the analysis said.

The parties are the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Indian National Congress (INC), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), CPM and All India Trinamool Congress (AITC).

The top donors included the Tata group’s Progressive Electoral Trust; Prudent Electoral Trust, which includes contributions from DLF Limited, Bharti Airtel, GMR Airports and Jubilant Foodworks Limited; and the Aditya Birla Group’s AB General Electoral Trust.

Of the Rs 876.1 crore, the ruling BJP received Rs 698.08 crore from 1,573 donations, which is more than seven times the total amount received by the other four national parties combined (201 donations) during the same period, the ADR report, released on Thursday, said.

The INC is a distant second to the BJP with Rs 122.5 crore from 122 corporate donors, while the AITC received Rs 42.9 crore from one donor and the NCP Rs 11.3 crore from 17 donors. The CPM got Rs 1.18 crore from 62 donations.

The report said that electoral trusts donated the maximum amount of Rs 612.65 crore followed by the manufacturing sector, which contributed Rs 96.85 crore, and the mining, construction and exports/imports sector, which contributed Rs 64.51 crore to the five parties, the analysis said.

An amount of Rs 20.54 crore was received from the unsegregated category, which includes companies with no details available online or those where the nature of work is not clear, it said.

Top donors

The top donors to the political parties were the Progressive Electoral Trust (Rs 455.15 crore), Prudent Electoral Trust (Rs 102.25 crore), AB General Electoral Trust (Rs 30 crore) BG Shirke Construction Technology Pvt Ltd (Rs 20 crore), Modern Road Makers Pvt Ltd (Rs 15 crore), Hero Cycle Ltd (Rs 12 crore) and ITC Ltd (Rs 10.5 crore).

As per the norm, political parties are required to submit details of donors who have made donations above Rs 20,000 in a financial year to the Election Commission of India, every year. Parties provide details such as the name, address, PAN, mode of payment and amount contributed by each donor.

“It is seen from the analysis that during FY 2018-19, a total of Rs 876.10 crore was donated by all the corporate/business houses to the five national parties … constituting 92% of the total contribution to political parties from known sources,” ADR said.

Big jump

Between 2012-13 and 2018-19, donations from corporate houses to national parties increased 968%, with a drop in the percentage of corporate donations in FY 2015-16.National parties received the maximum corporate donation of Rs 876.10 crore in 2018-19 (the period preceding the Lok Sabha elections), followed by Rs 573.18 crore in the FY 2014-15 (during which the 16th Lok Sabha elections were held) and Rs 563.19 crore in FY 2016-17.

Though a national party, the BSP has not been considered for analysis in this report as the party has declared that it received no voluntary contributions above Rs 20,000 from any donor during this period. The CPI did not declare any income from corporates for FY 2018-19 and hence has not been taken up for analysis.

ADR said in its recommendations that all donors who have donated a minimum of Rs 20,000 as a single donation or in multiple donations should provide their PAN details.

“A total of Rs 13.364 crore was collected by the national parties from 274 corporate donors without obtaining their PAN and address details. Such incomplete contribution reports must be returned to the parties by the ECI, to deter them from providing incomplete information,” it said.