Political Parties Income

Most unrecognized parties had disclosed their share of electoral bonds received as 'nil', as per the electoral bonds disclosure in digitised form on 17 March 2024

As the apex court has ruled, the electoral bond scheme was not appropriate

A single party showed donations which have resulted in an uptick to donations to unrecognised parties

Firms dominate list of 1,320 unique donors

Torrent Power, Bharti Airtel, DLF Commercial Developers, Vedanta Ltd. among donors to parties using electoral bonds

The State Bank of India should adhere to the deadline set by the Supreme Court to disclose to the Election Commission the names of contributors to electoral bond scheme, a bank employees' trade union demanded on Wednesday. The SBI on Monday had moved the top court seeking an extension of time till June 30 to disclose details of each electoral bond encashed by political parties. In its verdict last month, the court had directed the bank to furnish the details to the poll panel by March 6. In a statement issued in Kolkata, the Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI) also alleged that public sector banks and its personnel are being utilised for "narrow political interest of the ruling forces" and said it opposes this. The BEFI is a union consisting of employees of commercial banks, the Reserve Bank of India, NABARD, regional rural banks and co-operative banks. Calling the Supreme Court's verdict on electoral bonds a "landmark" judgment, the union said, "The country observed that SBI

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Friday said it has not accepted any funding through electoral bonds and it never opened a designated SBI account as required to accept the bonds. "Reports have appeared in some sections of the media that the CPI(M) has received various amounts as contributions through electoral bonds," the CPI(M) said in a statement. "The party wishes to clarify that these reports are false and baseless. The fact is that the CPI(M) has refused to accept electoral bonds on principle. That is why it did not even open a designated State Bank of India account as required by the law to accept electoral bonds," it said. "The CPI(M) had appealed to the Supreme Court against the electoral bonds scheme because of this basic opposition," it added in the statement. In a landmark verdict just months ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Supreme Court on Thursday scrapped the Centre's electoral bonds scheme of anonymous political funding, calling it "unconstitutional" and .

Share of other sources has declined as a proportion of overall income

The income of regional political parties from unknown sources in the financial year 2021-22 amounted to Rs 887.55 crore, accounting for 76 per cent of their total earnings, according to the Association of Democratic Reform (ADR). The figure indicates a rise in parties' income from unknown sources in comparison to 2020-21 when the total income of regional parties accounted for Rs 530.70 crore, of which Rs 263.93 crore or 49.73 per cent came from unknown sources. According to the report, donations over Rs 20,000 are defined to have come from "known" sources as their donor details are available through contribution reports as submitted by regional parties to the Election Commission of India (ECI). The "unknown" sources are income declared in the annual audit report by these parties but without giving the source of income. At present, political parties are not required to reveal the name of individuals or organisations giving less than Rs 20,000 and those who donated via electoral ...

The changing income profiles of national parties comes amidst the rising importance of electoral bonds

More than 66 per cent of the total income of seven national parties in 2021-22 came from "unknown sources" like electoral bonds, which accounted for a whopping 83 per cent, according to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). The seven parties -- BJP, Congress, TMC, NCP, CPI, CPI(M) and the National People's Party -- collected Rs 2,172 crore from unknown sources in 2021-22, the NGO working for electoral reforms said, citing official data. The income from unknown sources was 66.04 per cent of their total income. And, Rs 1,811.94 crore or 83.41 per cent of the income from unknown sources came through electoral bonds, it said. The "unknown" sources are income declared in the annual audit report by these parties but without giving the source of income, according to the ADR. At present, political parties are not required to reveal the name of individuals or organisations giving less than Rs 20,000 and those who donated via electoral bonds. The ADR stated such unknown sources incl

These 32 regional parties declared a total expenditure of Rs 4.35 billion during the year, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) said in a report today