The Opposition has often alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is a party that works more for the corporates than the downtrodden. Well, common people don't know how true the allegations are, but they do know something that shows that the corporates do love the saffron party more than any other national party. The BJP has not only cornered the lion's share of corporate funding since 2012, but it now appears to be the biggest beneficiary of donations made without Permanent Account Number or address details, despite its vocal advocacy of transparency in political funding, referring to the key findings of the Association for Democratic Reforms, which has analysed corporate donations to five political parties between 2012-13 and 2015-16.
The parties are: The BJP, the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The analysis was based on the details that political parties submit annually to the Election Commission (EC), informing the body about the donors who have contributed more than Rs 20,000 in a financial year. As the parties are not covered under the Right to Information Act, their disclosures to the EC offer only a glimpse into their finances. At a time when there is a growing demand to make poll funding transparent in India to cleanse politics, this report is disturbing.