Corporate giants donated a whooping ₹2,262 crore to THESE political parties in FY24. Guess who took the lion’s share? | Today News (2025)

Five national political parties in India, including the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress, received donations of ₹2262.5 crore from 3755 contributors in the 2023-24 financial year.

According to an analysis by the election watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), this is about 89 per cent of the total donations received by these parties through individual donors in FY 2023-24.

There are six national parties in India. Apart from the Congress party, the other national parties are the Aam Aadmi Party(AAP), the National People's Party (NPEP), the Communist Party of India M) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

The ADR analysed donations of ₹20,000 or more in 2023-24, as mentioned in reports submitted by these political parties to the Election Commission of India (ECI). The BSP has declared it did not receive any donations above ₹20,000 during FY 2023-24, as it has been declaring for the past 18 years.

While 3755 donations to the national parties made by corporate sectors amount to ₹2262.5 crore (88.9 per cent of total donations), 8493 individual donors donated ₹270.8 crore (10.6 per cent of total donations) to these parties during FY 2023-24, the ADR report said.

BJP's corporate donation ( ₹2064.58) is about nine times ₹197.9 crore of corporate donations declared by all other national parties for the FY 2023-24.

The Congress received a total of ₹190.3263 crore via 102 donations from corporate/business sectors and ₹90.899 cr via 1882 individual donors during FY 2023-24, the report said.

Overall, the BJP received donations to the tune of ₹2,243.947 crore in amounts of ₹20,000 or more in 2023-24. The donation is about seven times the collection by the Congress party in the same year.

Remember, 2024 was the year of Lok Sabha Elections. The election was held in seven phases from April 19 to June 1.

Even in 2022-23, the BJP received nearly 90 per cent of all corporate donations worth ₹680.49 crore that five national parties together gathered.

These include donations made through cheques and account transfers. As per Section 80GGB of the I-T Act, 1961, corporate taxpayers can claim deductions for donations made to political parties. A similar benefit is available to individual taxpayers under Section 80GGC

In February last year, the Supreme Court scrapped ‘Electoral Bond Scheme’ that allowed anonymous funding to political parties. However, this did not stop corporate funding to political parties.

The BJP received ₹1,685.6 crore through electoral bonds in FY 2023-24. This was the highest ever annual income or receipts from bonds declared by any party and about 38 per cent of BJP's total income of ₹4,340 crore as on March 31 in FY 2023-24.

Among other top donors, the Triumph Electoral Trust donated ₹127.50 crore to the BJP while Derive Investments donated ₹50 cr to BJP and ₹3.20 crore to the Congress party.

Acme Solar Energy Pvt. Ltd. donated ₹51 crore , Bharat Biotech International Limited donated ₹50 crore, Rungta Sons Private Limited donated ₹50 crore, and Dinesh Chandra R Agarwal Infracon Pvt. Ltd. donated ₹30 crore through to the BJP in FY 2023-24