The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) which has been rallying for national political parties to disclose their sources of donations through different sources and the contentious electoral bonds given their anonymity and potential influx of illegal funding.
The ADR has now released a report on the donations of above Rs. 20,000 received by national political parties for the year 2018 – 19. The National Parties include Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Indian National Congress (INC), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM) and All India Trinamool Congress (AITC).
ADR’s report mentioned that the total donation declared (above Rs. 20,000) by the National Parties was Rs. 951.66 crore from 5,520 donations. Out of this the major donations, more than three times the aggregate declared by the INC, CPI, CPM an AITC, were the donations to the BJP which stood at Rs. 742.15 crore from 4,483 donations. The INC declared that it received donations of Rs. 148.58 crore from 605 donations.
It also stated that the donations saw a jump of almost 103 percent to Rs. 481.77 crore in 2018 – 19 from the previous year. The donations to the BJP saw a 70 percent increase from Rs. 437.04 crore in 2017 – 18 to 742.15 crore in 2018 – 19. The INC saw a 457 percent jump in donations from Rs. 26.658 in 2017 – 18 to Rs. 148.58 crore in 2018 – 19.
The states which contributed the largest amounts of donations to the parties were Maharashtra (Rs. 548.22 crore), Delhi (Rs. 141.42 crore) and Gujarat (Rs. 55.31 crore).
The corporate sector made 1,776 donations (92.06 percent) of Rs. 876.11 crore were made to the national parties while 3,509 donations (7.50 percent) were made by individual donors. Out of the 1,776 corporate donations, 1,575 donations amounting to Rs. 698.092 crore were made to the BJP. The individual donations to the BJP amounted to Rs. 41.70 crore coming from 2,741 individual donors.
The INC received a total of Rs. 122.5 crore via 122 donations from corporate / business sectors and Rs. 25.39 crore via 482 individual donors.
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.
BSP has declared that for the past 13 years it hasn’t received donations above Rs. 20,000.
The report also stated that BJP did not declare the names of donors for 164 donations of Rs 2.34 crore in its contributions report for FY19. CPI (M) did not name one donor, who made a contribution of Rs 30,000.
The statement added that the BJP declared 452 donations of Rs 514.48 crore, the Trinamool Congress collected 89 donations of Rs 44.26 crore and the Congress received 51 donations of Rs 4.51 crore 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. “Thus, without the complete cheque/DD details, it would be a time consuming process to link the donors against their donations and hence trace the money trail,” it added.
Progressive Electoral Trust was the top donor. It donated a total of Rs 455.15 cr 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.
ADR has also been battling for political parties to reveal their funding from electoral bonds, Sabrang India had reported earlier. On behalf of ADR, a plea was filed by Advocate Prashant Bhushan who had informed the court that around “6,000 crore had been collected under the scheme so far, which is being misused by the party in power”. The contentious electoral bond scheme had earlier been flagged by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Election Commission of India (ECI) as well.
ADR had said that the amendments made to the above mentioned acts, opened doors to funding from foreign companies, thus legalizing anonymous donations.
Again, no bones had been made by the opposition about how BJP has gained a lion’s share of electoral bond donations. Out of the Rs. 6,000 crore bonds that were sold in 2018 – 19, bonds worth Rs. 4,500 crore went to the BJP.
Earlier this month, the Election Commission of India (EC) had filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court (SC) saying that it had “received sealed covers” from 105 national, state, state unit of political parties, state parties and unregistered parties about donations garnered through electoral bonds.
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