It appears the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) popularity among corporates and individual donors has increased with the party registering a 10-fold increase in donations between financial years 2003-04 and 2011-12. Whereas, the Congress, received Rs2.40 lakh from nine donors between 2003-04 and 2011-12.
The disclosure was made by a report on income and expenditure of major political parties of the State (including donations received by them), released by the National Election Watch and Association for Democratic Reforms here on Friday. The report is based on study of the income tax returns filed by political parties with the Election Commission of India.
The report states that in 2003-04, the BJP received donation of Rs50.50 lakh from four different sources. This included Rs40 lakh from Grasim Cement, Rs5 lakh from Bhopal-based Som Distilleries and another Rs5 lakh from an individual. In 2011-12, it received Rs5.3 crore from 517 sources. The donors included 67 real estate and property companies and several other firms, including private educational enterprises.
Notably, out of a total of 1,104 donors to the party all over the country during 2011IJ12, a staggering 517 donors were from Madhya Pradesh.
The Congress, on the other hand, did better than the BJP at the national level where it received nearly double the amount received by the BJP.
At the same time, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) have not received any donation exceeding Rs 20,000 during the period.
It may be noted that as per the provisions of Representation of People's Act, 1951, only donations exceeding Rs 20,000 are given receipt and recorded in the income tax returns filed by the political parties.
The report has pointed out that this practice leaves unaccounted a major chunk of funds received by the political parties. Thus, at the national level, Rs 1,553 crore received by Congress and Rs 880 crore received by BJP are from unknown sources.
Releasing the report, Professor Jagdeep Chhokar of IIM Ahmadabad, who is also the founding member of National Election Watch, said there was a pressing need to reform the electoral laws to make income and expenditure of political parties more transparent. The present system has too many loopholes for the parties to hide the actual source of money, he added.