NEW DELHI: In yet another indication of opacity in political funding, only one of the seven electoral trusts formed after January 2013 has submitted details of its donors to the Election Commission despite government guidelines requiring them to do so.
Electoral Trusts are set up for the sole purpose of funding registered political parties and according to June 2014 guidelines they are expected to submit an annual report to the EC. Only the Bharti Airtel group backed Satya Electoral Trust has submitted its annual report for the year 2013-2014. Among those who have not submitted any information include Pratinidhi Electoral Trust, People's Electoral Trust, Progressive Electoral Trust, Janhit Electoral Trust, Bajaj Electoral Trust and Janpragati Electoral Trust.
According to data analyzed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) the Satya Trust received Rs 85.40 crore and distributed Rs 85.37 crore to various political parties. The largest corporate contributors to the Trust are Bharti Enterprises who gave Rs 36 crore, DLF (Rs 20 crore), Hero Motocorp (Rs 11 crore), Jubliant Bharti Group (Rs 6 crore), Interglobe Aviation Limited and K K Birla Group who donated Rs 4 crore and Rs 2 crore respectively.
These donations were channeled to BJP, Congress and NCP with the saffron party being the largest recipient. BJP received Rs 41.37 crore (48.44%) of the total donations made to the trust followed by Congress with Rs 36.50 crore and NCP with Rs 4 crore. Regional parties like SAD, RJD and J&K's National Conference also received donations from the Satya trust.
About 15 corporates have established electoral trusts. Besides Bharti's Satya Electoral Trust, others in the list include Vedanta group (Janhit Electoral Trust), Reliance group (People's Electoral Trust), Mahindra group (Mahindra Electoral Trust, New Democratic Electoral Trust), Tata Group (Progressive Electoral Trust), M P Birla Group (Paribartan Electoral Trust), Bajaj group (Bajaj Electoral Trust), Murugappa group (Triumph Electoral Trust), Bharat group (Kalyan Electoral Trust), Kotak group (Janta Nirvachak Electoral Trust), Lodha Group (Jagrut Electoral Trust), K K Birla group (Samaj Electoral Trust Association), Jain group (Gauri Welfare Association Electoral Trust) and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Party that runs the Sardar Vallabhbhai Electoral Trust.
While some information is available about these, there are nine trusts about which no information is available with the authorities. These include Pratinidhi Electoral Trust, Reformative Electoral Trust of India, Bharatiya Socialist Republican Electoral Trust, Harmony Electoral Trust, Jankalyan Electoral Trust, Janpragati Electoral Trust, Ambar Electoral Trust, Swadeshi Electoral Trust and Ashmita Electoral Trust.
