BJP Received Rs 742 Crore in Donations, Rise of 70% in a Year, Reveals ADR Report

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received Rs 742 crore in donations, while the Congress got Rs 148 crore, according to submissions made by the parties before the Election Commission of India (ECI) for 2018-19 which was compiled by think tank the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR).

The donations for the BJP increased from Rs 437.04 crore during 2017-18 to Rs 742.15 crore during 2018-19, a rise of 70 per cent, the ADR said.

The Congress' donations increased from Rs 26 crore during 2017-18 to Rs 148.58 crore during 2018-19, a rise of 457 per cent, it said, adding the party's donations had decreased by 36 per cent between 2016-17 and 2017-18.

"A total of Rs 742.15 crore was declared by the BJP from 4,483 donations while the INC (Indian National Congress) declared receiving Rs 148.58 crore from 605 donations," the ADR said in a statement.

The report focused on donations of Rs 20,000 and above.

On the other hand, the donations declared by the BJP is more than three times the aggregate of what has been declared by the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] and the Trinamool Congress during the same period, it added.

The statement said, "1,575 donations from corporate/business sectors were made to BJP (Rs 698.092 crore) while 2,741 individual donors donated Rs 41.70 crore to the party during FY 2018-19."

"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 during FY 2018-19."

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) declared that it did not receive any donations above Rs 20,000 during FY 2018-19, as it has been declaring for the past 13 years.

The Progressive Electoral Trust donated Rs 455.15 crore to the BJP, Congress and Trinamool Congress together and is one of the top two donors to the three parties that received the maximum donations.

The trust donated Rs 356.535 crore to the BJP (48.04 per cent of total funds received by the party) and Rs 55.629 crore to the Congress (37.44 per cent).

The BJP and INC received Rs 67.25 crore (9.06 per cent) and Rs 39 crore (26.25 per cent), respectively from the Prudent Electoral Trust.

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.