Five national political parties of India received ₹2544.278 crore contributions from 12,547 donations in 2023-24, a recent report by election watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) has revealed.
Of this, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received donations to the tune of ₹2,243.947 crore in amounts of ₹20,000 or more in 2023-24. This amount is about seven times the collection by the opposition Congress party ( ₹281.48 cr from 1994 donations), as per the reports submitted by the political parties to the Election Commission of India (EC).
Apart from the BJP and the Congress, the four national political parties are the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the National People’s Party (NPEP), and the Communist Party of India M). The sixth national political party, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) declared it did not receive any donations above ₹20,000 during FY 2023-24.
State-wise donations to national parties, FY 2023-24
Which state donated the most to political parties? The ADR segregated donations according to states based on the addresses provided by the parties in their donations report to the Election Commission of India.
Delhi donated ₹989.20 crore to the national parties, followed by ₹404.512 crore from Gujarat and ₹334.079 crore from Maharashtra. Another ₹142.7 crore donation came from Tamil Nadu and ₹112.9 crore from Telangana.
Other states and Union Territories contributed about ₹554.7 crore worth of donations to national political parties in 2023-24.
The ADR report said a donation of ₹7000 from a donor in the United States has been made to AAP.
A total of ₹6.062 crore could not be attributed to any state/ Union Territory due to incomplete/undeclared information provided by the parties, the ADR report said.
What did the ADR report reveal?
According to an analysis by ADR, the BJP declared more than six times the aggregate donations declared by four other national parties—the Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party(AAP), the National People’s Party (NPEP), and the Communist Party of India M) — in 2023-24.
The total donations (above ₹20,000) declared by the national parties for FY 2023-24 was ₹2544.278 crore from 12,547 donations.
Corporate Donations
The national parties received ₹2262.5 crore (88.9271 per cent of total donations) as corporate donations. The parties got ₹270.872 crore (10.6463 per cent of total donations) to the parties during FY 2023-24 as individual donations, according to the ADR report.
The BJP got ₹ 2064.58 crore as corporate donations and another ₹169.126 crore as individual donations during FY 2023-24, the report found.
Delhi donated ₹989.20 crore to the national parties, followed by ₹404.512 crore from Gujarat.
The BJP declared ₹2243.947 crore donations from 8,358 donations, followed by ₹281.48 crore from 1994 donations declared by the Congress party.
The AAP received about ₹11 crore, the CPI (M) about ₹7.6 crore, and the NPEP about ₹ 0.14 crore through donations in 2023-24.
