Political funding from corporates increased 107% between 2017-18 and 2018-19

NEW DELHI: Political funding from corporate entities towards political parties have been the highest so far in the financial year 2018-19, with the donations amounting to Rs 876.10 crore, according to a report by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), published on Thursday. This is the period preceding the 17th Lok Sabha elections. Before the 16th Lok Sabha elections the maximum corporate donations amounted to Rs 573.18 crore in the financial year 2014-15 and Rs 563.19 crore in the year 2016-17.
As per ADR’s analysis, “donations from corporates to the national parties increased by 131% from the period 2004-12 and 2018-19.”
According to the report, corporate donations received in 2018-19 constituted 31% of the total corporate donations received between 2012-13 and 2018-19. Donations from corporates to national parties increased by 107% between 2017-18 and 2018-19.
Progressive Electoral Trust was the top donor to three of the National parties namely BJP, Congress and Trinamool Congress in 2018-19. The Trust donated three times in a single year to the three parties each, amounting to a total of Rs 455.15 crore.
While BJP declared receiving Rs 356.535 crore, Congress and TMC were the recipient of Rs 55.629 crore and Rs 42.986 crore, respectively in single donations each from Progressive Electoral Trust.
The top donor for Sharad Pawar led NCP was BG Shirke Construction Technology Pvt Ltd in 2018-19.
In 2018-19, Electoral Trusts were the biggest donors to national parties, contributing a total amount of Rs 612.65 cr (a share of 69.93%).
Manufacturing sector was the second highest overall contributor in 2018-19, contributing a total of Rs 96.853 cr. In 2017-18 too, the manufacturing sector was the second highest contributor with Rs 74.744 crore.
In 2018-19, BJP, Congress and TMC received the maximum contributions from Electoral Trusts, with BJP getting Rs 471.786 crore, followed by Congress receiving Rs 93.88 crore and Mamata Banerjee’s TMC getting Rs 42.986 crore.
Five national parties — BJP, INC, NCP, CPM and AITC — “reported receiving 341 donations amounting to Rs 20.54 crore from corporate entities which have zero internet presence or if they do there is ambiguity about the nature of their work. Contact and address details of most of these companies were unavailable in cases where they were visible online,” the ADR report said, adding that “such contributions have not been segregated into different sectors due to incomplete information.”
Political parties are mandated to submit details of the institutions who have made donations above Rs 20,000 in a financial year (between April 1 and March 31) to the ECI every year that include details of name, address, PAN, mode of payment and amount contributed by each donor.
The ADR report states that “though a national party, BSP has not been considered for analysis in this report as the party has declared that it received no voluntary contributions from any donor during the time period since 2004.”
On the other hand, it says, “CPI has not been taken up for analysis as it declared no income from corporates for between 2018-19.”