BJP emerges top beneficiary of corporate donations after electoral bonds scrapped

Kolkata: After the Supreme Court scrapped the electoral bond scheme, the ruling party at the Centre, BJP, emerged as the biggest beneficiary with Rs 3,112 crore having been received as corporate donations routed through electoral trusts.

The amount the saffron party has received is around 82 per cent of the total funds donated by trusts in 2024-25. The total donations to political parties are Rs 3,811 crore. According to the contribution reports submitted by the different trusts to the Election Commission of India (ECI), just under 8 per cent of their donations or Rs 299 crore went to the Congress while all other parties put together received the balance 10 per cent or Rs 400 crore.

Among the total donations of Rs 3,811 crore to various political parties, Prudent Electoral Trust reportedly emerged as the largest contributor, distributing Rs 2,668 crore among 15 political parties. Out of this, BJP reportedly received Rs 2,180.7 crore, Congress got Rs 216.3 crore while Trinamool Congress received Rs 92 crore. Prudent Electoral Trust reportedly donated to other parties like AAP, TDP etc as well.

In the previous financial year i.e. 2023-24, the BJP had received Rs 3,967.14 crore in voluntary contributions, of which 43 per cent or Rs 1,685.62 crore were from electoral bonds. The Supreme Court had found the electoral bond scheme unconstitutional and scrapped it in 2024. 

In the first financial year after the Supreme Court had scrapped the government’s anonymous political funding scheme through electoral bonds, around 9 electoral trusts donated a total of Rs 3,811 crore to political parties in 2024-2025. The party in Centre comes out to be the biggest beneficiary. The contribution reports of 13 electoral trusts of the 19 currently registered, available with the ECI say that nine trusts declared a total contribution to parties of Rs 3,811 crore – an increase of over 200% from the Rs 1,218 crore total contributions by trusts in 2023-2024.

Corporates can donate through cheque, DD, UPI bank transfers to parties but they will have to declare the donations in their contribution reports and annual audit reports to the poll panel.