Out of the 11 political parties contesting the Bihar assembly elections 2020 only 3 parties have submitted their donation reports to the Election Commission of India.
Under Section 29C (1) of the Representation of People's Act, 1951, all political parties are required to prepare a report providing details of contributions in excess of twenty thousand rupees from any donor in a financial year (between 1st April and 31st March) to the Election Commission of India, every year by September 30 to avail 100 per cent tax exemption.
The remaining 8 political parties have delayed their submission at least once during the five-year period, a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms Sais.
The total amount of donations, above Rs 20,000, declared by the eleven political parties analysed in their contribution reports was Rs 27,77.97 crore. Between 2014-15 and 2018-19, 80.12 per cent or Rs 22,25.66 crore of the total donations were declared by the BJP followed by INC which received 13.64 per cent of the total contributions. Between 2014-15 and 2018-19, the analysed political parties did not declare the donor's name in case of 217 donations. Of this, BJP declared the highest number of donations (175) without donor name. The 11 political parties did not declare the complete address details of 5,815 donors - the address details were undeclared for 5,799 donors while they were incomplete for 16 of them. BJP and RLSP did not declare the address of a total of 4935 and 558 donors, respectively, for the period between 2014-15 and 2018-19. From FY 2014-15 to 2018-19, PAN details of a total of 3468 donations were not declared while the details provided in case of 128 donations were incorrect. Highest number of such donations having undeclared or incorrect PAN details were declared by BJP (1,899) followed by INC (678) & RLSP (558). Between 2014-15 and 2018-19, the 11 political parties analysed in this report declared 3468 donations of Rs 325.23 crore without declaration of PAN.
BJP declared the highest donations (1,837) without PAN amounting to Rs 237.22 crore or 72.94 per cent of the total such donations followed by INC (Rs 81.87 crore) and CPI (Rs 5.04 crore).
The highest value of such donations were declared by these parties during the 2014-15 (the year of Parliamentary elections) of Rs 275.75 crore (705 donations). The 11 political parties analysed in this report declared 128 donations worth Rs 15.75 crore with incorrect PAN between FY 2014-15 and FY 2018-19.
BJP constituted 60.19 per cent or Rs 9.48 crore of the total such donations followed by INC (Rs 5.88 crore) and CPM (Rs 35.70 lakhs).