Poll bonds chief source of donations for parties: report

Source: The post is based on the article “Poll bonds chief source of donations for parties: report” published in The Hindu on 12th July 2023

What is the News?

Association of Democratic Reforms(ADR) has released a report titled “Analysis of Donations to Registered Political Parties from FY 2016-17 and FY 2021-22.

What are the key findings of the report?

Donations to Political Parties: The total donations declared by the 7 National Parties from Electoral Bonds, corporate sector and other donations between FY 2016-17 and 2021-22 were Rs 13190 crores (80.247%).

– For National parties, there was a 743% increase in donations from electoral bonds between FY 2017-18 and FY 2021-22 while for corporate donations this increase is only 48%. 

– Electoral Bonds are the most preferred mode of donations for making contributions to National and Regional parties followed by direct corporate donations.

– The total donations declared by BJP is more than three times the total donations declared by all other National parties.

Electoral Bonds: During the six-year period, more than 52% of BIP’s total donations came from Electoral Bonds worth ₹5,271.97 crore.

– The Congress declared the second highest donations from bonds of ₹952.29 crore (61.54% of its total donations) followed by the Trinamool Congress that got ₹767.88 crore (93.27%). 

– Among the regional parties, the BJD received 89.81% of its total donation from bonds worth ₹622 crore, while the DMK got ₹431.5 crore (90.7%) and the TRS got ₹383.65 crore (80.45%).

Direct Corporate Donations: The direct corporate donations declared by 7 National parties are more than five times the corporate donations declared by 31 Regional Parties during the six-year period.

– The corporate donations declared by BJP are at least three-four times more than the total corporate donations of all other National Parties. In FY 2017-18, it was more than eighteen times that of all other National parties.  

– For the six-year period, BSP has consistently declared no corporate donations while CPI has declared receiving zero corporate donations from FY 2018-19 to FY 2021-22.