 "Inner contradictions in SP stand exposed: BJP over Amar Singh")
This version modifies the earlier one that misstated Satya Electoral Trust is a Bharti Group Trust. The trust, according to Mukul Goyal who is its director, is an idependent entity. The error is regretted
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was the recipient of the largest sum of donations received by any national political party in 2014-15. It got donations amounting to Rs 437.35 crore out of a total sum of Rs 622.38 crore received by all political parties in 2014-15, according to Association of Democratic Reform (ADR) in its report for 2014-15.
Donations declared by the BJP are more than twice the aggregate declared by the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India (Marxist) for the same period. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) declared the party did not receive any donations above Rs 20,000 during FY15, as it has been declaring for the past 10 years.
All donations above Rs 20,000 received by political parties have to be listed with the Election Commission of India annually, with the names of the donor, their pan (permanent account number) card, their address and the contributed amount. Total amount of donations above Rs 20,000 declared by the national parties was Rs 622.38 crore, from 1,695 donations.
Total donations to national parties during FY15 increased by Rs 374.61 crore, an increase of 151 per cent, from the previous financial year 2013-14. The NCP declared the highest increase of 177 per cent, from Rs 14.02 crore in FY14 to Rs 38.82 crore in FY15, while donations to the BJP increased from Rs 170.86 crore during FY14 to Rs 437.35 crore during FY15 (156 per cent increase).
Incomplete disclosure of Rs 83.915 lakh was declared as received by the BJP from 20 such donors whose PAN details, address and mode of contribution (together) were unavailable. Thus, only names of such donors and the contributed amount was declared by the party. About 73 per cent of such funds came from companies and 27 per cent from individual donors.
In the report submitted by INC, the column for declaring mode of contribution did not contain the cheque/demand draft numbers, for 192 donations amounting to Rs 138.98 crore. This forms 98 per cent of total donations above Rs 20,000 to the party. The Congress received a total of Rs 55.88 lakh as donations by cash but PAN details of 11 such donors are unavailable.
Similarly, CPI collected a total of Rs 4.49 lakh as donations by cash from eight donors whose PAN details are unavailable. The CPI has not provided the names and PAN number of 27 state secretaries of the party though their contributions amount to Rs 76.81 lakh. Top donor to the national parties in FY15, Satya Electoral Trust, donated a total of Rs 132 crore to the BJP, INC and NCP and is one of the top two donors to the two parties.
"Bharti Group contributed only Rs 31 crore during 2014-15 out of Rs 141 crore total contributions we received," said Mukul Goyal, Director of the Trust.
Corporate houses like Hero Motocorp Ltd, Jubiliant Foodworks Ltd, GMMCO Ltd, National Engineering Industries Ltd, Orient Cement Ltd, DLF Ltd, JK Tyres and Industries Ltd, India Bulls Housing Finance Ltd, Kalpataru Power Transmission Ltd etc also donated money, he said.
Goyal added, "A total of 17 corporate houses contributed during 2014-15. These contributions were utilised for giving donations across political parties the said year."
The Trust donated Rs 107.25 crore to the BJP (25 per cent of total funds received by the party), Rs 18.75 crore to INC (13 per cent of the total funds received by the party) and Rs 6 crore to the NCP. General Electoral Trust had not made any donations to the national parties during FY14 but has contributed a total of Rs 117.30 crore to BJP and INC. BJP received Rs 63.2 crore (14 per cent of total funds received by the party) and INC received Rs 54.10 crore (38 per cent of total funds received by the party) from the Trust during FY15.
PAN details of the Trust were not available in the report submitted by INC and only once (for its donation of Rs 20 lakh) in the report filed by BJP. Donations to the CPI were by means of collection, levy and membership fees. The highest amount was from the secretary, Kerala State Council (Rs 20 lakh), followed by Sudhakar Reddy (Rs 17.88 lakh).
THE MONEY GAME
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All donations above Rs 20,000 received by political parties have to be listed with EC annually with the names of donors, their PAN cards, their addresses and the contributed amount
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The total amount of donations above Rs 20,000 declared by the national parties was Rs 622.38 cr
