5520 donated Rs. 951.66 crores to National Parties, BJP got 78 per cent share
Corporate contributed Rs 698.092 crore to BJP, Congress gets Rs 122.5 crores
New Delhi: As per data prepared by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), focuses on donations received by the National Political Parties, above Rs 20,000, during the Financial Year 2018-19, as submitted by the parties to the Election Commission of India (ECI), ruling BJP has received donation of Rs 742.15 crores from 4,483 donations while Indian National Congress has declared receiving Rs 148.58 crores from 605 donations.
The total donations (above Rs 20,000) declared by the National Parties was Rs. 951.66 crore from 5520 donations.
The ruling BJP declared donations is more than three times the aggregate declared by Indian National Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) for the same period.
Interestingly the Bahujan Samaj Party, once a ruling party in biggest state UP, declared that the party did not receive any donations above Rs 20,000 during FY 2018-19, as it has been declaring for the past 13 years.
The total donations of the National Parties during FY 2018-19 increased by Rs 481.77 crores, an increase of almost 103%, from the previous financial year 2017-18. The BJP’s donation increased from Rs 437.04 crores during FY 2017-18 to Rs 742.15 crores during FY 2018-19 (70% increase). While Indian National Congress donations increased from Rs 26.658 crores to Rs 148.58 cr.
The maximum donation has been received for Maharashtra, as political parties have got a total donation of Rs 548.22 crores, followed by Rs 141.42 crores from Delhi and Rs 55.31 crores from Gujarat.
Corporate houses, who are the biggest donor of political parties, have contributed 1776 donations to the National Parties amounting to Rs 876.11 crores (92.06% of total donations) while 3509 individual donors donated Rs 71.407 crores (7.50% of total donations) to the parties during FY 2018-19.
BJP is again received most donation from the corporate houses as total 1575 donations from corporate/business sectors were made to BJP (Rs 698.092 crore) while 2741 individual donors donated Rs 41.70 crore to the party during FY 2018-19.
Congress has received a total of Rs 122.5 crore via 122 donations from corporate/business sectors and Rs 25.39 crore via 482 individual donors during FY 2018-19.
Progressive Electoral Trust donated a total of Rs 455.15 crore to BJP, INC and AITC together and is one of the top 2 donors to the three parties that received the maximum donations. The Trust donated Rs 356.535 crore to BJP (48.04% of total funds received by the party) and Rs 55.629 crore to INC (37.44% of total funds received by the party). BJP and INC received a total of Rs 67.25 crore (9.06%) and Rs 39 crore (26.25%), respectively from Prudent Electoral Trust.
Discrepancies in the declaration of donations
ADR has found discrepancies in the declaration of the donations. As per the report, of the 7 National Parties, 4 parties, BJP, INC, CPI and CPM had not declared PAN details of 1300 donations through which the parties collected a total of Rs 29.44 crores (3.09%).
BJP has declared Rs 27.24 crores from 1170 donations where it failed to provide PAN details of donors. Congress collected Rs 92.80 lakhs from 28 donations without PAN. 81 donations to CPI (Rs 1.168 crores) and 21 donations from CPM (Rs 10.70 lakhs) do not have PAN details. 3 National Parties (BJP, INC, and CPM) have declared Rs 2.49 crores from 46 donations having missing/incorrect PAN details.
Ruling BJP has declared 452 donations of Rs 514.48 crores, AITC collected 89 donations of Rs 44.26 crores and Congress has collected 51 donations of Rs 4.51 crores having incomplete cheque/DD details where cheque number, bank details on which it was drawn and the date on which the cheque was received/ encashed is not provided. Leftists CPI and CPM have also not declared the details of cheque and DD (cheque number, bank on which it was drawn and the date) for a total of 66 donations of Rs 78 lakhs and 31 donations of Rs 35.63 lakhs, respectively.
ADR also found that the total sum of donations declared by Congress in its Contributions report is incorrect. It is found that the total declared (Rs 146.78 crores) by the party is Rs 1.80 crores less than the actual amount (Rs 148.58 cr).
