For the BJP, electoral bonds contributed more than 52 % of total donations, while the Congress got 61.5% .
Donations to seven national political parties through electoral bonds have gone up by 743 per cent since 2018, reveals an analysis by electoral watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). Corporate donations to these parties have increased only by 48 per cent in the same period, said the report, released on July 11.
Electoral bonds contributed more than half (52%) to the total donations received by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), amounting to Rs 5,272 crore since 2018, when the Electoral Bond Scheme 2018, an alternative to cash donations, was introduced as a transparent means of political funding.
The Congress received donations through electoral bonds worth Rs 952.2 Crore, 61.5 per cent of its total donations, the report said in the same period.
Among other national parties, the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) received Rs 767.8 crore, which is 93.27 per cent of its donations, from electoral bonds.
Overall, the seven national parties received donations worth Rs 7,056 crore through electoral bonds since 2018, revealed the analysis.
Apart from the BJP, the Congress and the AITC, the national parties analysed by the ADR study include the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
Electoral donations are contributions above Rs 20,000 to political parties by individuals, corporates and electoral trusts.
Sold four times a year (January, April, July and October) by the State Bank of India, electoral bonds allow political parties to accept money from anonymous donors.
In 2017-18, the first year of the scheme, the seven political parties received donations worth Rs 215 crore through electoral bonds. In the period studied, for financial years 2021-22, the amount went up to Rs 1,812 Crore, a jump of 743 per cent, revealed the ADR report. Corporate donations to these parties during this period have gone up from Rs 422 crore to Rs 625.7 crores, which is a jump of 48 per cent.
Overall, 31 recognised political parties (seven national and 24 regional parties) received donations worth Rs 16,437 crore from electoral bonds, the corporate sector and other sources in the six-year period between 2016-17 and 2021-22. This includes Rs 9,188 crore received from electoral bonds (55.9 per cent), Rs 4,614 crores received from the corporate sector (28.07 per cent) and Rs 2,634 crores received from other sources (16.03 per cent ).
During this six-year period, the BJP declared the highest total donations, including electoral bonds, worth Rs 10,122 crore followed by the Congress at Rs 1547.4 crore and the AITC at Rs 823.301 crore in the six-year period. The total donations declared by BJP are more than three times the total donations declared by all other six national parties.
For the BJP, more than 52 per cent of the total donation that the party received came from electoral bonds which is worth Rs 5271.9 crore. For the Congress, 61.5 per cent of its total donations came from electoral bonds worth Rs 952.2 crores.
Among regional parties, more than 89.81 per cent of the BJD’s total donations came from electoral bonds which is worth Rs 622 crore. The DMK declared Rs 431.50 crores (90.703 per cent of its total donations) in the form of electoral bonds followed by TRS which declared Rs 383.6529 crore (80.45 per cent) and YSR-C which declared Rs 330.44 crore (72.43 per cent ) as donations through electoral bonds .
Similar to a bank note, an electoral bond is like a promissory note that can be bought by any citizen of India or a company from select branches of State Bank of India. The citizen or corporate house can then donate the same to any eligible political party.
While the government says that the electoral bonds would keep tabs on the use of black money for funding elections, critics say details of donors should be made public. The ADR has recommended scrapping of the Electoral Bond Scheme.
“In the case of continuance of the Scheme, the principle of anonymity of the bond donor enshrined in the Electoral Bond Scheme, 2018 must be done away with,” it said in a statement accompanying the report.