Election Commission data reveals the truth of Political Donations
By Prabha, April 15,2025
Political funding in India is disclosed by the Election Commission, whose detailed analysis reveals that the largest contributors to political parties are electoral trusts, along with companies from the infrastructure, pharmaceutical, and mining sectors.
Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) compiled a data on electoral donations which is released by the Election Commission. It reveals that the electoral trusts made the highest donations to political parties in the financial year 2023-24. This is followed by companies from the infrastructure, pharmaceutical and mining sectors.
Interestingly, at least five of the top donor companies are currently being investigated by central agencies. Of these, four made substantial contributions to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), while one donated to the Congress.
Electoral trusts made the highest donations in 2023-24. These electoral trusts act as intermediaries between donors and political parties, Prudent Electoral Trust, Triumph Electoral Trust and Jai Bharat Electoral Trust together donated Rs 1,196 crore. Of this, Prudent and Triumph contributed Rs 1,061 crore and Rs 132.5 crore, respectively. Three electoral trusts are among the top 20 donors to the nine major parties—BJP, Congress, AAP, TDP, JDU, TMC, DMK, YSRCP and BRS.
Major companies that donated through these trusts include ArcelorMittal, Nippon Steel, DLF, Maruti Suzuki, CESC and Megha Engineering. ArcelorMittal and DLF donated Rs 100 crore each, Matha Projects Rs 75 crore and Maruti Suzuki and CESC Rs 60 crore each to the Prudent Electoral Trust.
Companies from the infrastructure and construction sector were at the forefront of donations. A total of 23 such companies donated Rs 248 crore, of which BJP got Rs 227 crore, TDP got Rs 10.83 crore and Congress got Rs 9 crore. The biggest donor among them was Dineshchandra R. Agarwal Infracon of Ahmedabad, which gave Rs 50 crore to the BJP. It was followed by Mumbai-based Macrotech Developers, owned by Maharashtra Cabinet Minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha, which contributed Rs 29.7 crore.
Since 2016 the Income Tax Department has been putting Dineshchandra R. Aggarwal of Infracon under the scanner of. It was also issued tax notices in 2021-22. The probe found that the company generated unaccounted wealth through fake sub-contractor expenses. Despite this, the company gave Rs 15 crore to the BJP and Rs 3 crore to Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena through electoral bonds in 2023.
Companies in the pharmaceutical and mining sectors also donated huge amounts. Mcleods Pharmaceuticals and Intas Pharmaceuticals donated Rs 25 crore each to the BJP, while Ajanta Pharma, Troikaa Pharmaceuticals and Cadila Pharmaceuticals gave Rs 5 crore each. Bharat Biotech, known for vaccine manufacturing, also donated Rs 50 crore to the BJP.
Vedanta Limited and Jindal Steel were major donors. Vedanta bought electoral bonds worth Rs 400.35 crore from 2019 to 2024, of which Rs 230.15 crore went to the BJP, Rs 125 crore to the Congress and Rs 40 crore to the Biju Janata Dal (BJD).
Five companies among the top donors are facing investigations by central investigative agencies the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Income Tax Department. Four of these made huge donations to the BJP, while one Hyderabad-based company donated to the Congress.
Another company Megha Engineering, the second-largest buyer of electoral bonds, bought bonds worth Rs 50 crore in 2019 after the Income Tax Department raids. The company also gave Rs 25 crore to the Prudent Electoral Trust.
The donations through electoral trusts and bonds has been in controversies. The Supreme Court had struck down the electoral bond scheme in February 2024, terming it unconstitutional. Even after this, there was a huge jump in donations through electoral trusts.
Prudent Electoral Trust received Rs 1,075.7 crore in 2023-24, three times more than the previous year’s Rs 363 crore.
Analysts say electoral trusts are one of the reasons for the lack of transparency, as it is not clear which company is donating how much to which party however,Congress research head M.V. Rajeev Gowda termed it “semi-transparent”, saying that parties know the identity of the donors, but this information is not public.
The 2023-24 data shows that most of the donations to political parties come from sectors such as infrastructure, pharma and mining, which often depend on government projects and approvals. The BJP received the largest share of the total donations (over 72%) while the Congress, TMC and other parties also received significant amounts.
Organisations seeking electoral reforms, such as ADR, have long been advocating transparency in political donations. After the Supreme Court verdict, it is expected that the process of donations will be made more transparent in the future. However, experts believe that until concrete laws are made, this system will remain in controversies.
