Corporates donated Rs 985.1 crore to national political parties in the financial years 2016-17 and 2017-18.
The total amount was about 3 percent more than what these parties had received in the previous four financial years combined (2012-13 to 2015-16). Nearly half of all corporate donations come from electoral trusts.
Political parties are mandated to submit details of donors who contribute over Rs 20,000 in a financial year, to the Election Commission of India (EC).
According to an analysis by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received Rs 915.5 crore of the total amount. This amount came from 1,731 corporate donors.
The Congress secured the second-highest corporate funding. The party received Rs 55.3 crore from 151 corporate donors.
The ADR analysis has covered the BJP, the Indian National Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC). While Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is a national party, it was not covered as it had declared that it received no voluntary contributions of over Rs 20,000 during the said period.
NCP, CPI(M), TMC and CPI received around Rs 7.7 crore, Rs 4.4 crore, Rs 2 crore and Rs 0.04 crore, respectively.
Big corporate donors
Between FY17 and FY18, Prudent/Satya Electoral Trust was the biggest donor to the BJP and the Congress. The trust donated around Rs 405.2 crore to the BJP and Rs 23.9 crore to the Congress in the two-year period.
Top three corporate donors for BJP and Congress in FY17 and FY18:
BJP
Prudent/Satya Electoral Trust: Rs 405.5 crore
Bhadram Janhit Shalika Trust: Rs 39 crore
Janta Nirvachak Electoral Trust: Rs 25 crore
Congress
Prudent/Satya Electoral Trust: Rs 23.9 crore
Raj West Power Limited: Rs 5 crore
AN Enterprises Infrastructure Service Pvt Lt: Rs 3 crore
Know your donors?
A total of 916 donations worth Rs 120.1 crore, received by national parties, do not have address details in the contribution form.
National parties have received Rs 2.5 crore from 76 donations who did not have PAN details in the contribution form.
About 98 percent of the donations without PAN and address details worth Rs 2.5 crore, went to the BJP.
Earlier this year, Moneycontrol had reported on how BJP's FY18 donations were 13 times that of all other national parties combined.