Kolkata: The total donations declared by India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are more than three times the total donations declared by all other national parties during the six year period from 2016-17 to 2021-22.
This was revealed in a latest report “Analysis of Donations to Registered Recognised Political Parties, FY 2016-17 to FY 2021-22”, prepared jointly by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and the National Election Watch (NEW).
During the six-year period, more than 52% of the BJP’s total donations came from Electoral Bonds worth Rs 5271.97 crore, while all other national parties received Rs 1783.93 crore, the report said.
It pointed out that during the same period the Indian National Congress declared the second highest donations from bonds of Rs 952.29 crore, which is 61.54% of its total donations. The All India Trinamool Congress followed by declaring Rs 767.88 crore, which is 93.27% of its gross donations.
While more than 89.81% of the Biju Janata Dal’s (BJD) total donations came from electoral bonds worth Rs 622 crore, the DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) declared the second highest donations from bonds at Rs 431.50 crore which is 90.703% of its total donations. Closely following was the TRS (Telangana Rashtra Samithi), which declared Rs 383.6529 crore (80.45%) and the YSRC (Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress) which declared Rs 330.44 crore (72.43%), the ADR-NEW report pointed out.
During the six year period under review, as per the report, the total direct corporate donations declared by the national parties were Rs 3,894.83 crore, while the regional parties declared Rs 719.69 crore. “The direct corporate donations declared by seven national parties are more than five times the corporate donations declared by 31 Regional Parties during the six-year period,” the report said.
It also noted that the corporate donations declared by the BJP were at least three to four times more than the total corporate donations of all other national parties. In the financial year 2017-18 it was more than 18 times that of all other national parties.
For the six-year period, the BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party) has consistently declared no corporate donations while the CPI (Communist Party of India) has declared receiving zero corporate donations from the financial year 2018-19 to 2021-22. In the six-year period, direct corporate donations declared by the regional parties increased by 152.02%, the ADR-NEW report read.
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