Regional party donations triple in 2 years, DMK tops list with Rs 365 cr: ADR report
Regional parties in India have strongly influenced and reshaped the contours of the polity. This acceptance by the electorate is now reflected in their funding, which has seen a stupendous three-fold increase through donations between 2023 and 2025.
The amount received in donations by the regional parties was Rs 1,051.56 crore in 2024-25, an increase of Rs 688.769 cr (198.18 per cent), up from Rs 347.69 crore in 2023-24, while the total number of donations received for the two years were 5,297 and 2,861, respectively — denoting an 85 per cent increase.
Notably, Corporate and business houses continued to dominate political funding, contributing Rs 644.93 crore in 2024-25, nearly three times the Rs 227.61 crore amount donated in the previous year, though their share in the total value of donations declined marginally.
According to a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms released on Thursday, donations from donors with undeclared addresses increased sharply in 2024-25, both in terms of number (613 to 2,025 donations) and value (Rs 8.482 cr to Rs 337.11 crore) while donations from donors with undeclared addresses totalled Rs 345.594 cr through 2,638 donations across the two financial years, accounting for 24.7 per cent of the total value of donations received.
The ADR report said across the two financial years, corporate and business houses contributed Rs 872.54 crore through 650 donations, adding up to over 62 per cent of the total value of contributions. Individual donors accounted for the largest number of donations, making 5,647 contributions across two years. However, they contributed only Rs 193.95 crore, or about 14 per cent of the total value of donations. While the number of individual donations increased in 2024-25, their overall value declined, resulting in a sharp fall in their share of total donations.
The report also flagged a sharp increase in donations from undeclared donors, which rose from Rs 6.62 crore in 2023-24 to Rs 302.67 crore in 2024-25, taking their share in the total value of donations to nearly 29 per cent.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) received the highest amount from undeclared donors at Rs 300.64 crore, accounting for over 82 per cent of its total declared donations during the year. The Tamil Nadu-based party also topped the list of recipients in 2024-25 with declared donations of Rs 365.78 crore, followed by the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) at Rs 184.96 crore and the YSR Congress at Rs 140.04 crore. Notably, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) had been the highest recipient in 2023-24 with Rs 100.19 crore.
The report pointed out that AITC, YSR Congress, TDP, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) relied almost entirely on corporate and business house donations, with negligible or no contributions from other donor categories. Prudent Electoral Trust emerged as the largest donor across the two financial years, contributing Rs 434 crore through 38 donations, followed by Tiger Associates with Rs 160 crore.
Progressive Electoral Trust, Vedanta Limited and AB General Electoral Trust also featured among the top five donors.
Electoral trusts continued to dominate political funding, with Prudent Electoral Trust, Progressive Electoral Trust and AB General Electoral Trust together contributing Rs 536 crore, or about 64 per cent of the total donations made by the top 10 donors during the two-year period.
The report further found that donations without PAN details increased sharply in value from Rs 7.69 crore in FY2023-24 to Rs 329.58 crore in FY2024-25, accounting for over 31 per cent of the total donations received during the year. The number of donations without PAN details also rose to 2,463 from 529 in the previous year.
It also noted that cash donations increased sharply in value to Rs 301.44 crore in FY2024-25 from Rs 6.54 crore in the previous year, while 1,978 donations worth Rs 13.39 crore were reported without disclosing the mode of payment.
