BJP Got 93% Of All Corporate Donations To Political Parties Between 2016-2018
The BJP received Rs 915.60 crore as political donations from corporates between 2016 and 2018, over 16 times as much as Congress.
The Bharatiya Janata Party received more than Rs 900 crore as political donations from over 1,500 corporates between 2016 and 2018—over 16 times as much as Congress in the same time period, a report by Association of Democratic Reforms shows.
According to the ADR analysis, between 2016 and 2018, business houses donated Rs 985.18 crore, constituting 93 percent of the total contribution to political parties from known sources.
"Out of the six national parties, the BJP received the maximum donations of Rs 915.596 crore from 1,731 corporate donors, followed by the Congress which received a total contribution of Rs 55.36 crore from 151 corporate donors, and Nationalist Congress Party with Rs 7.737 crore from 23 corporate donors in 2016-17 and 2017-18," the ADR report stated.
During 2016-17 and 2017-18, voluntary contributions to the BJP and the Congress above Rs 20,000 from corporates was 94 percent and 81 percent, respectively.
Between 2012-13 and 2017-18, the BJP received the maximum corporate donations of Rs 1,621.40 crore, constituting 83.49 percent of the total corporate donations in those six fiscal years.
Donations from corporates to national political parties increased by 160 percent between 2004-05 and 2011-12 and 2016-17 to 2017-18.
Between 2012-13 and 2017-18, political donations from corporates increased by 414 percent, with a major drop in the percentage of corporate donations in 2015-16. Donations from corporates reduced by 25.07 percent between 2016-17 and 2017-18.
The political parties considered for the ADR report were the BJP, Congress, NCP, Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the All India Trinamool Congress.
Though a national party, Bahujan Samaj Party was not considered for analysis in this report as the party has declared that it received no voluntary contributions above Rs 20,000 from any donor between 2016 and 2018 as well as since 2004, the report said.
The report said CPI had the lowest share of corporate political donations at 2 percent.