Top corporate donors to National Parties
INC: Torrent Power Ltd donated the maximum amount (Rs 3.50 crores) followed by Torrent Pharmaceuticals (Rs 1.50 crores) and Hyderabad Industries Ltd (HIL) (Rs 50 lakhs).
BJP: General Electoral Trust of the Aditya Birla Group donated the maximum amount (Rs 7.50 crores) followed by Lodha Dwellers Pvt. Ltd (Rs 6.99 crores) and Torrent Power (Rs 6.57 crores).
CPI and CPM: CPI received a total of Rs 4.21 lakhs from organizations such as Bhartiya Khet Mazdoor Union and while CPM received a total of Rs 1.43 crores from 29 corporate/ business houses.
The name and address of a total of 43 donors who contributed Rs 29 lakhs to the National Parties is undeclared in the statements submitted by the parties. Thus, these donations above Rs 20,000 cannot be traced to any individual, organization or a trust. Similarly, the addresses of a total of 655 donors contributing Rs 10.84 crores to the National Parties have been left undeclared in the statements submitted by the parties.
Recommendations of ADR
The Supreme Court gave a judgment on September 13, 2013 declaring that no part of a candidate’s affidavit should be left blank. Similarly, no part of the Form 24A submitted by political parties providing details of donations above Rs 20,000 should be blank.
Full details of all donors should be made available for public scrutiny under the RTI. Some countries where this is done include Bhutan, Nepal, Germany, France, Italy, Brazil, Bulgaria, the US and Japan. In none of these countries is it possible for 75% of the source of funds to be unknown, but at present it is so in India.
Details of donors who make donations to the Electoral Trusts should be available in the public domain for increasing transparency in funding of political parties.
Those parties not following the ICAI guidelines for auditing of reports should be scrutinized by the IT department.
