POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS - YOU SCRATCH MY BACK, I SCRATCH YOURS

By Ruma Dubey

There was a very telling report on ‘donations’ or contributions received by political parties from the people of India. Not surprisingly, BJP won hands down, topping the list for garnering the maximum.

This report was prepared by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW). Its focus has been on donations received by the National Political Parties, above Rs 20,000, during the Financial Year 2014-15 (FY15), as submitted by the parties to the Election Commission of India (ECI). The National Parties include Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Indian National Congress (INC), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M).

Today, we have something known as the Electoral Trust – we have 14 registered such Trusts set up by companies mainly for the purpose of funding political parties and companies get tax benefits for funds given to various political outfits. The Trust gets tax benefits only if they distribute 95% of total contributions received by them in any financial year to the registered political parties within that year itself. NRIs can make contributions to these Trusts and no contribution by cash is allowed.

Just as we vote for a political party expecting an improvement in quality of life, companies also contribute, knowing fully well that leaders need to be kept humoured or else their various projects, sanctions might never come in. This is a tacit understanding between the party and company – you scratch my back, I scratch yours. Both need each other and each needs to keep the other happy to ensure he is not ousted out.  Corporates are some of the biggest contributors to political parties and fighting elections needs lots of money. It is payback time only after elections are over.

Take a quick look at the highlights of this report:

• The total amount of donations above Rs 20,000 declared by the National Parties was Rs. 622.38 crores, from 1695 donations.
• With 1234 donations from individuals and corporates, BJP tops the list and has declared a total of Rs.437.35 crore as received via voluntary contributions above Rs 20,000.
• The donations declared by BJP is more than twice the aggregate declared by the INC, NCP, CPI and CPM for the same period.
• BSP declared that the party did not receive any donations above Rs 20,000 during FY15, as it has been declaring for the past 10 years.
• Total donations of the National Parties during FY 2014-15 increased by Rs 374.61 crores, an increase of 151% (YoY).
• NCP declared the highest increase of 177% at Rs.39 crore.
• Donations to BJP increased 156% to Rs.437.35 crore.
• Donations from corporates formed 94% of total donations declared by BJP.
• A telling tale - Rs 83.915 lakhs was declared as received by 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. 73% of such funds came from corporates and 27% from individual donors.
• Bharti Group’s Satya Electoral Trust donated a total of Rs 132 crore to BJP, INC and NCP and is one of the top 2 donors to the two parties. The Trust donated Rs 107.25 crores to BJP(25% of total funds received by the party), Rs 18.75 crores to INC (13% of total funds received by the party) and Rs 6 crores to NCP.
• Progressive Electoral Trust, established by the Tata group gave Rs.9.9 crore to Congress.
• There is no mention of contribution from Reliance group’s People’s Electoral Trust and Vedanta’s Janhit Electoral Trust.
• Aditya Birla group’s General Electoral Trust contributed a total of Rs 117.30 crore to BJP and INC in FY15. 14% of BJP’s fund came from this Trust and 38% of Congress.
• Lodha Constructions was the third largest contributor to BJP at Rs.16 crore. Then as Lodha Dwellers and Pallava Dwellers, it gave Rs.8 crore to NCP.
• Videocon contributed Rs.5 crore to NCP, Rs.2.5 crore to Congress and Rs.10 crore to BJP
• Modern Road Makers, which is part of IRB Infra gave Rs.13.5 crore to BJP, Rs.5 crore to Congress and Rs.2.5 crore to NCP.
• RKW Developers, a part of the Wadhwan group, selling under Dheeraj Group gave Rs.10 crore to BJP
• L&T and M&M contributed Rs.5 crore each to BJP and Congress.
• Wockhardt gave Rs.2 crore to Congress  and Nesco gave Rs.2.5 crore.
• Torrent Power gave Rs.2 crore to NCP.
• Sudhakar Mallappa Shetty, owner of infamous Deepa Bar and now a legitimate industrialist of Sahana group - he contributed Rs.10 crore to Congress.
• The top three states to contribute – Maharashtra at 262 crore of which Rs,246 crore was from corporate. Second place was Gujarat at Rs.25 crore of which Rs.23 crore form corporate and third was Delhi at Rs.15 crore of which Rs.12 crore was from India Inc.
• The good news – cheque formed 66% of all the modes of contribution while cash was just 0.14% of the total contributions.

For more valuable insight, kindly refer to data provided by Association for Democratic Reform and the following links will help: http://adrindia.org/sites/default/files/Analysis_of_donations_declared_by_National_Parties_FY_2014_15.pdf