Rs 700 Crore Donations for BJP!

The ruling party BJP has received over Rs 700 crore during the financial year 2018-19 as donations through cheque and online payments. According to the information provided by BJP to the Election Commission, Tata-controlled Progressive Electoral Trust donated Rs 356 crore while Prudent Electoral Trust, India's richest trust, gave Rs 54.25 crore. Prudent Trust is backed by top corporate houses including Bharti Group, Hero MoroCorp, Jubilant Foodworks, Orient Cement, DLF, JK Tyres, among others.

Donations received in form of electoral bonds were not included in this filing. The BJP received donations from individuals, companies and electoral trusts as well. As per the election code, political parties are mandated to disclose all donations they receive in a financial year. For now, there is no need to declare the names of individuals and organizations giving less than Rs 20,000 and those who donate via electoral bonds.

The scheme which was introduced in January 2018 allows citizens or corporate groups to buy bonds from the State Bank of India and give it to a political party, so that it will be free to redeem them for money. These bonds are anonymous. In April 2018, a Right to Information query had said that 99.8% of donations received by political parties through electoral bonds between March 2018 and January 24, 2019, were of the highest denominations – Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore.