Both the rival national parties of BJP and the Congress had a rain of money in 2021-2022 in the wake of soaring donations from across all quarters. A report from the election reform body, Association of Democractic Reforms (ADR), has revealed the donations received by the national parties. While the Communist outfits have had a plunge in their donations, both BJP and Congress had recorded a surging trend of donations compared to the previous year.
According to the ADR report, the ruling BJP has received Rs 614 crore as donation in 2021-22, while the Congress party has received Rs 95 crore during the same period. As per the report, the total donations of above Rs 20,000 declared by the national parties for 2021-2022 was Rs 780.774 crore from 7,141 donations. In its report, the ADR cited that the donations declared by the BJP are more than three times the figures declared by all other national parties, excluding Congress and Bahujan Samaj.
ADR said, "A total of Rs 614.63 crore from 4,957 donations was declared by the BJP, followed by Rs 95.46 crore from 1,255 donations declared by Congress. The donations declared by the BJP are more than three times the aggregate declared by the Congress, NCP (Nationalist Congress Party), CPI (Communist Party of India), CPI(M) (Communist Party of India- Marxist), NPEP (National People's Party), and AITC (All India Trinamool Congress) for the same period."
The Bahujan Samaj Party (SP) had declared it didn't receive any donation above Rs 20,000 during 2021-2022 as it has been declaring for the past 16 years. The total donations of the national parties during 2021-2022 rose by Rs 187.03 crore, an increase of 31.50 per cent from 2020-2021. The report had highlighted that the donations to the BJP increased from Rs 477.55 crore in 2020-2021 to Rs 614.63 crore in 2021-2022. The ruling party had recorded an increase of 28.71 per cent in a year.
On the other hand, the donations to the Congress party had increased from Rs 74.52 crore during 2020-2021 to Rs 95.46 crore during 2021-2022, which is a 28.09 per cent increase. The Congress party had faced a decrease in its donations by 46.39 per cent between 2019-2020 and 2020-2021. The CPI(M) had declared a decrease in its donations by 22.06 per cent in 2021-2022 than in 2020-2021. The leftist party had recorded a decrease of Rs 2.85 crore in its donations.
The donations to NPEP had decreased by 40.50 per cent in 2021-2022. The segregation of donations according to the state was made by ADR based on the addresses provided by the parties in their donations report to the Election Commission. On the front of states that provide more donations to the national parties, Delhi tops the table with a total of Rs 395.85 crore, followed by Maharashtra and Gujarat with Rs 105.35 crore and Rs 44.96 crore respectively.
A total of 2,551 donations to the national parties were made by corporate and business sectors amounting to Rs 625.88 crore, which is 80.16 per cent of total donations. About 4,500 individuals had donated a whopping Rs 153.33 crore to the national parties in 2021-2022. BJP tops the table by receiving more donations from the corporate and business sectors, as the saffron party has declared a total of 2,068 donations from corporate sector, amounting to Rs 548.81 crore.
With the corporate donation of Rs 548.81 crore, the BJP had recorded a highest jump as it received the corporate donation more than seven times the total amount of Rs 77.08 crore of corporate donations declared by all other national parties in 2021-2022. About 2,870 individuals had donated a total of Rs 65.77 crore to the BJP. The Congress party had received a total of Rs 54.57 crore through 170 corporate donations while 1085 individuals had donated a total of Rs 40.89 crore to the party.
In its report, ADR said that The Prudent Electoral Trust had donated a total of Rs 353 crore to the BJP and Congress together and is the top donor to parties that received maximum amount. The Trust donated Rs 336.50 crore to the BJP (54.75 per cent of total funds received by the party) and Rs 16.50 crore to the Congress (17.28 per cent of total funds received by the party).
