BJP Tops National Parties in Political Donations for FY 2023–24 with ₹2,243.94 Crore – ADR Report
New Delhi, 07-04-2025: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged as the leading recipient of large-scale political donations among national parties during the financial year 2023–24, having declared over ₹2,243 crore from 8,358 donations. This figure, as disclosed in a report released by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), signifies the highest volume of declared donations by any national party for the fiscal year. The ADR’s findings are based on donation reports submitted by political parties to the Election Commission of India, specifically tracking contributions above ₹20,000.
The report noted that the total donations received by all national parties combined stood at ₹2,544.28 crore from 12,547 individual and corporate contributions. This marks a dramatic 199 percent increase in donations compared to the previous year. The BJP alone accounted for a staggering 88 percent of this amount, further solidifying its financial dominance on the national political landscape. The Indian National Congress stood as a distant second, having declared ₹281.48 crore from 1,994 donations, while other national parties such as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Communist Party of India (Marxist), and National People’s Party (NPEP) reported considerably smaller sums. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), consistent with its past records, once again declared zero donations above ₹20,000, a pattern it has maintained for 18 consecutive years.
The BJP’s donations showed a sharp upward trajectory from the previous year’s ₹719.85 crore, reflecting a 211.72 percent increase. The Congress too witnessed a notable jump, with declared donations rising from ₹79.92 crore in FY 2022–23 to ₹281.48 crore in FY 2023–24, an increase of 252.18 percent. In contrast, the Aam Aadmi Party experienced a sharp decline of 70.18 percent in its declared donations, while the NPEP saw a nearly complete drop of 98.02 percent. Despite the Election Commission’s stipulated deadline of September 30, 2024, for submission of contribution reports, only the BSP and AAP adhered to the timeline. The BJP submitted its report 42 days late, while CPI(M), Congress, and NPEP submitted their reports with delays of 43, 27, and 23 days respectively.
A deeper analysis of the donation patterns reveals that the corporate and business sectors were the primary contributors to national parties. Of the total contributions, 3,755 donations worth ₹2,262.55 crore—constituting 88.92 percent—came from corporate entities, while 8,493 individual donors accounted for ₹270.87 crore or 10.64 percent. Among these, the BJP received ₹2,064.58 crore from 3,478 corporate donations and ₹169.13 crore from 4,628 individual donations. In comparison, the Congress received ₹190.32 crore from 102 corporate donors and ₹90.89 crore from 1,882 individual donors. The BJP’s corporate donations alone exceeded the combined corporate donations to all other national parties by more than nine times, as per the ADR analysis.
Among the top donors, Prudent Electoral Trust stood out as the most prominent contributor, donating a combined ₹880 crore to both BJP and Congress. Out of this, ₹723.675 crore was given to the BJP, accounting for 32.25 percent of the party’s total donations, while the Congress received ₹156.40 crore from the same trust, representing 55.56 percent of its total donations. Other major contributors to the BJP included Triumph Electoral Trust with ₹127.5 crore in four installments, and Derive Investments which donated ₹50 crore to the BJP and ₹3.20 crore to Congress. Several corporate entities also made sizable single donations to the BJP during the fiscal year: Acme Solar Energy Pvt Ltd contributed ₹51 crore through five separate donations, Bharat Biotech International Ltd made a single donation of ₹50 crore, Rungta Sons Pvt Ltd gave ₹50 crore, and Dinesh Chandra R Agarwal Infracon Pvt Ltd donated ₹30 crore.
The ADR also pointed out inconsistencies between what some electoral trusts reported donating and what political parties acknowledged receiving. For instance, Prudent Electoral Trust’s report listed 31 donations totaling ₹723.78 crore to the BJP, while the BJP’s own report only acknowledged 30 donations amounting to ₹723.675 crore. A similar mismatch appeared in the case of Jaybharath Electoral Trust, which claimed to have donated ₹5 crore to the BJP, but this figure did not appear in the BJP’s own filings.
In view of the discrepancies and the scale of corporate influence in political funding, the ADR has recommended a series of reforms aimed at enhancing transparency and accountability in the political donation process. These include making PAN details mandatory for all donations exceeding ₹20,000, strict enforcement of deadlines for donation report submissions, and rejecting incomplete or non-compliant reports. Furthermore, the ADR has called for annual scrutiny of donation reports by the Central Board of Direct Taxes and has advocated for making donor information publicly accessible under the Right to Information Act. The organization has also urged the Election Commission to disclose any punitive actions taken against parties that fail to meet disclosure standards and recommended the establishment of an online portal to monitor the filing and compliance status of political parties in real time. These measures, according to ADR, are critical for upholding democratic transparency and curbing the growing opacity in political financing.
