Donations to national parties plunged 41.49 pc in 2020-21 against previous yr: ADR

The first wave of Covid started around the end of March 2020, just before the start of the financial year, triggering a nationwide lockdown. Donations to the BJP decreased from Rs 785.77 crore during FY 2019-20 to Rs 477.54 crore during FY 2020-21 -- a fall of 39.23 percent.

The donations that recognized national parties received during the financial year 2020-21 decreased by over Rs 420 crore, a sharp fall of 41.49 percent from the previous fiscal, a poll reform advocacy group said on Thursday.

The fall in donations could be due to the Covid-19 pandemic which had triggered a lockdown. The first wave of Covid started around the end of March 2020, just before the start of the financial year, triggering a nationwide lockdown.

Donations to the BJP decreased from Rs 785.77 crore during FY 2019-20 to Rs 477.54 crore during FY 2020-21 -- a fall of 39.23 percent. The party's donations had increased by 5.88 percent during FY 2019-20 in comparison to FY 2018-19, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) said in a statement.

The donations received by Congress plunged from Rs 139.016 crore during FY 2019-20 to Rs 74.524 crore during FY 2020-21 -- a reduction of 46.39 percent. Its donations had decreased by 6.44 percent between FY 2018-19 and FY 2019-20, the statement said.

A total of over Rs 246 crore was donated to the national parties from Delhi, followed by Rs 71.68 crore from Maharashtra and over Rs 47 crore from Gujarat.

Donations totaling Rs 37.912 crore (6.39 percent of the aggregate received by the national parties in FY 2020-21) could not be attributed to any state or union territory due to incomplete or undeclared information provided by the parties, it said.

BJP, BSP, Congress, CPI, CPI-M, TMC, NCP, and National People's Party are the eight recognized national parties.

The corporate and the business sector made 1,398 donations to the national parties amounting to Rs 480.655 crore -- over 80 percent of the total donations -- while 2,258 individual donors contributed Rs 111.65 crore or 18.804 percent of the total to these parties during FY 2020-21.

Over 1,100 donations from the corporate and business sectors were made to the BJP (Rs 416.794 crore), while 1,071 individual donors gave Rs 60.37 crore to the party during FY 2020-21.

Congress received a total of Rs 35.89 crore through 146 donations from the corporate sector and Rs 38.634 crore via 931 individual donors during FY 2020-21. BSP declared that it did not receive any donations above Rs 20,000 during FY 2020-21, as it has been declaring for the past 15 years.

The ADR said the due date for submission of contribution reports by the parties was September 30, 2021. Only BSP submitted its contribution report on time while NCP, TMC, CPI-M, NPP, Congress, BJP, and CPI submitted theirs after a delay of 10, 117, 136, 137, 161, 164, and 178 days, respectively.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)