BJP Alone Received 90.31% Of The Total Donations To National Parties Above Rs 20,000: ADR Report

The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), an NGO working in the area of political and electoral reform, along with National Election Watch (NEW) presented a report on the donations received by the seven national political parties – Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Indian National Congress (INC), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM) in the Financial year (FY) 2016-17.

The report revealed that the total donations of above the Rs 20,000 amount declared by the national parties were Rs 589.38 crore from 2123 donations. Rs 532.27 crore, that is 90.31% of the total donations was declared by BJP alone. Notably, the donations declared by BJP is more than nine times the aggregate donation amount declared by the other parties in the survey.

The second on the list, INC declared receiving Rs 41.90 crore from 599 donations. While BSP declared that it has not received any donations above Rs 20,000 during FY 2016-17.

As compared to the financial year 2015-16 wherein the total donations received by the national parties was Rs 102.02 crore, the financial 2016-17 saw an increase of 478% with the declared donations stood at Rs 487.36 crore.

Donations to BJP took a 593% leap by receiving Rs 76.58 crore in 2015-16 as compared to Rs 532.27 crore in 2016-17, while NCP declared the highest increase of 793%. Donations to AITC, CPM and INC increased by 231%, 190% and 105% respectively. Donations of CPI decreased by 9%.

Of the total income of Rs 1559.17 crore of these national parties, those from known donors stood at Rs 589.38 crore, while that from other miscellaneous known sources which include the sale of assets, membership fees, bank interest, the sale of publication, party levy, etc. was Rs 258.99 crore.

The total income from unknown sources (income which is specified in the IT Returns whose sources are unknown) for FY 2016-17 is Rs 710.80 crore which is 45.59% of the total income of the parties from all over India.

For the BJP, “voluntary contributions” made up 99.98% of the total income from unknown sources, which totalled Rs 464.94 crore in 2016-17 and for Congress, the “sale of coupons” made up 91.69% of the total income from unknown sources.

Delhi, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Haryana were the top five states which donated to the parties. Collectively, these five states donated Rs 449.71 crore and the other states and Union territories donated Rs 139.57 crore.

Satya Electoral Trust donated a total of Rs 265.12 crore to BJP and INC and is the top donor to the two parties.

The report also alleged that BJP, Congress, CPI and CPM provided incomplete information and did not declare the PAN details of at least 166 donations.