Donations above ₹20,000 received by regional political parties nearly tripled in financial year 2024-25, rising to ₹1,051.56 crore from ₹347.69 crore in the previous year, according to a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) released on Thursday.

The number of declared donations jumped 85% — from 2,861 donations in FY 2023-24 to 5,297 donations in FY 2024-25. Across the two financial years, regional parties declared a total of 8,158 donations above ₹20,000 amounting to ₹1,399.25 crore.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) emerged as the highest recipient of donations in FY 2024-25, receiving ₹365.78 crore from 467 donations. In FY 2023-24, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) had topped the list with ₹100.19 crore from 172 donations.

The DMK was followed by the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) with ₹184.96 crore and the YSR Congress with ₹140.04 crore. The top five recipient parties — DMK, AITC, YSR Congress, TDP and AIADMK — together received ₹840.13 crore, accounting for 79.9% of total donations declared during the year.

Other regional parties among the top 10 recipients included BJD (₹60 crore), JMM (₹33 crore), Janasena Party (₹25 crore), JD(U) (₹18 crore) and IUML (₹15 crore).

Corporate and business houses remained the single largest source of political funding, contributing ₹872.54 crore — 62.36% of all donations declared during the two financial years combined. In FY 2024-25 alone, corporate donations nearly tripled to ₹644.93 crore from ₹227.61 crore in the previous year.

Individual donors accounted for the highest number of donations — 5,647 contributions, or nearly 69% of all donations — but contributed only ₹193.95 crore, or 13.86% of the total value.

The report flagged a sharp increase in donations from undeclared donors, which rose from ₹6.62 crore in FY 2023-24 to ₹302.67 crore in FY 2024-25, taking their share in total donations to nearly 29%.

The DMK received the highest amount from undeclared donors at ₹300.64 crore, accounting for over 82% of its total declared donations during the year.

The report highlighted significant gaps in transparency disclosures. Donations without PAN details increased sharply in value from ₹7.69 crore in FY 2023-24 to ₹329.58 crore in FY 2024-25, accounting for over 31% of total donations received during the year.

Additionally, 99.5% of AITC’s donations in FY 2024-25 — ₹184.08 crore out of ₹184.96 crore — were received through cheques or demand drafts carrying incomplete donor details.

While the number of cash donations declined sharply from 432 in FY 2023-24 to 74 in FY 2024-25, the total amount received through cash increased dramatically from ₹6.54 crore to ₹301.44 crore. The DMK alone accounted for ₹300.65 crore of these cash receipts.

“Since these cash contributions were disclosed as donations below the statutory reporting threshold of ₹20,000, individual donor details are not available. Consequently, it is not possible to determine whether these amounts represent contributions from a large number of distinct small donors or whether, in some instances, the same donor made multiple donations below the disclosure threshold,” the report said.

Prudent Electoral Trust emerged as the largest donor across the two financial years, contributing ₹434 crore through 38 donations, followed by M/s Tiger Associates with ₹160 crore. Progressive Electoral Trust, Vedanta Limited and AB General Electoral Trust also featured among the top five donors.

Electoral trusts continued to dominate political funding, with Prudent Electoral Trust, Progressive Electoral Trust and AB General Electoral Trust together contributing ₹536 crore — about 64% of the total donations made by the top 10 donors during the two-year period.

The report, which analysed 40 of the country’s 67 recognised regional parties, found that only 12 regional parties submitted their contribution reports on time for FY 2024-25, compared to 24 parties in the previous year. A total of 21 regional parties submitted their reports late, with delays ranging from 8 to 160 days.

Contribution reports for 33 regional parties for FY 2024-25 were not available on the Election Commission of India’s website, including the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference, Asom Gana Parishad, Goa Forward Party, and several others.

Parties that witnessed a significant increase in donations between the two financial years included DMK, AITC, JMM, AIADMK, LJP (Ram Vilas), JD(U) and BJD. The DMK recorded the largest jump in absolute terms, with donations rising by ₹344.22 crore.

Parties that recorded a decline included BRS (down 82.25% to ₹15.09 crore), TDP, Janasena Party, CPI, Jannayak Janta Party, JD(S) and MNS. The BRS saw the largest decline in absolute value, with donations falling by ₹69.91 crore.