Press Release: Manufacturing sector dominated contributions to Electoral Trusts in FY 2024–25, accounting for Rs 1,063.128 cr, which constituted 27.78% of the total donations; Real Estate (Rs 629.17 cr; 16.44%) and Communication/IT/Telecom (Rs 451.8582 cr; 11.81%) emerged as the second and third largest contributions, respectively.

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Feb 13, 2026, 1:29:18 AM (2 days ago) Feb 13

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Press Release

Date: 13th February, 2026

Analysis of Contribution Reports of Electoral Trusts for FY 2024-25

Introduction

The Election Commission of India (ECI) had circulated Guidelines for submission of contribution reports of Electoral Trusts in Letter No. 56/Electoral Trust/2014/PPEMS on the 6^th June, 2014 wherein instructions were issued to all the Electoral Trusts formed after January,’13 (and approved by the CBDT), to submit an annual contribution report containing details of contributions received by the Electoral Trusts and disbursed by them to political parties in the interest of transparency.

These guidelines were issued to 7 Electoral Trusts formed after January, 2013, which included Satya Electoral Trust, Pratinidhi Electoral Trust, People’s Electoral Trust, Progressive Electoral Trust, Janhit Electoral Trust, Bajaj Electoral Trust and Janpragati Electoral Trust. These guidelines are being sent by the ECI to all electoral trusts formed since then.

15 out of the 20 Electoral Trusts, registered with the CBDT, submitted their contribution details for FY 2024-25 to the ECI of which only 10 declared to have received any donations during that year. The following report of ADR analyses the details of donors of 10 Electoral Trusts formed after January, 2013 and the contributions made by the Trusts to political parties during FY 2024-25. For ADR’s analysis of the annual reports of the Electoral Trusts since FY 2013-24, please refer here.

Link to complete reports in English & Hindi with details of all contributions received and disbursed by the Electoral Trusts during FY 2024-25 : https://adrindia.org/content/Analysis_of_Contribution_reports_of_Electoral_trusts_FY_2024-25

Executive Summary

Renewal of approval of Electoral Trusts

According to Clause 5 (o) of the Electoral Trusts Scheme, 2013, the approval given to a registered Electoral Trust “shall be valid for the assessment year relevant to the financial year in which such application has been made and for a further period, not exceeding three assessment years, as may be specified in such approval” (emphasis added).

15 Electoral Trusts submitted applications for their renewal to the CBDT. Details of dates of renewal available in the detailed report.

Status of contributions report received by ECI from registered Electoral Trusts, FY 2013-14 to 2024-25

Out of the 20 registered electoral trusts, 6 trusts have been submitting copies of their contributions reports to the Election Commission, consistently, since their registration.
Satya/Prudent Electoral Trust is the only trust to submit its annual report for all 12 years, FY 2013-14 to 2024-25, declaring contributions received each year.
There are 2 registered electoral trusts that have either declared not receiving any contributions or whose contribution reports have not been available on the ECI website, at all, since their registration. Refer to Detailed Report for complete list of electoral trusts and their status of submission of contribution reports.

Details of the donations received by Electoral Trusts, FY 2024-25

Out of 20 electoral trusts, only 15 trusts submitted their contribution reports. Among these, only 10 trusts declared receiving contributions from various corporate houses and individuals.

Contributions received and disbursed by Electoral Trusts during FY 2024-25

According to the rules formulated by the Central Government, electoral trusts are required to distribute at least 95% of the total contributions received during the financial year along with the surplus brought forward from the earlier financial year to the eligible political parties, before 31st March of the said financial year.
10 electoral trusts which have declared receiving contributions during FY 2024-25, have received a total amount of Rs 3826.3417 cr from corporates and individuals and distributed Rs 3826.3522 cr to various political parties.

Contributions made by Corporates and Individuals to Electoral Trusts, FY 2024-25

228 Corporate/Business Houses have contributed Rs 3636.819 cr to Electoral Trusts in FY 2024-25. 184 Corporate/Business Houses contributed Rs 2479.049 cr to Prudent Electoral Trust, 15 companies contributed Rs 915 cr to Progressive Electoral Trust, 9 companies contributed Rs 160 cr to New Democratic Electoral Trust, 7 companies contributed Rs 35.55 cr to Harmony Electoral Trust, 3 companies contributed Rs 25 cr to Triumph Electoral Trust, 3 companies contributed Rs 15 cr to Bhartiya Bhumi Electoral Trust, 5 companies contributed Rs 6 cr to Samaj Electoral Trust, 1 company contributed Rs 1.02 cr to Janpragati Electoral Trust and 1 company contributed Rs 20 lakhs to Jankalyan Electoral Trust.
99 individuals/proprietors have contributed to Electoral Trusts in FY 2024-25. 96 individuals contributed Rs 187.5427 cr to Prudent Electoral Trust and 3 individuals contributed Rs 8 lakhs to Einzigartig Electoral Trust.
Elevated Avenue Realty LLP contributed the highest amount of Rs 500 cr among all donors to electoral trusts, followed by Tata Sons Private Limited with Rs 308.1324 cr, Tata Consultancy Services Limited with Rs 217.6216 cr, and Megha Engineering & Infrastructure Limited, which contributed Rs 175 cr to various trusts.
Top 10 donors have donated Rs 1908.8621 cr to electoral trusts, which forms 49.89% of the total donations received by the trusts during FY 2024-25. All these 10 donors contributed to Prudent, Progressive and New Democratic Electoral Trusts.

Sector-wise categorization of contributions made by donors to Electoral Trusts during the FY- 2024–25

Manufacturing sector dominated contributions to Electoral Trusts in FY 2024–25, accounting for Rs 1,063.128 cr, which constituted 27.78% of the total donations.
Real Estate (Rs 629.17 cr; 16.44%) and Communication/IT/Telecom (Rs 451.8582 cr; 11.81%) emerged as the second and third largest contributions, respectively.
Finance (Rs 389.8581 cr; 10.19%), Mining/Construction/Infrastructure/Engineering (Rs 358.6872 cr; 9.37%), and Power & Oil (Rs 255.9675 cr; 6.69%) together formed a substantial share of overall contributions.

Donations made by Electoral Trusts to Political Parties, FY 2024-25

Prudent Electoral Trust donated Rs 2180.7119 cr to BJP, in contrast to Rs 723.785 cr contributed in FY 2023-24, while Progressive E.T. donated Rs 757.6205 cr of its total income to BJP in FY 2024-25.
Prudent E.T. donated Rs 216.335 cr to INC.
Prudent Electoral Trust donated to 15 political parties, including all parties like BJP, INC, AITC, YSR-Congress, TDP, JD(U), AAP, BJD, BRS, Bharath Dharma Jana Sena, AJSU PARTY, SDF, LJP, NCP and Praja Shanthi Party.
BJP received Rs 3157.6549 cr accounting for 82.52% of the total donations received by all political parties from electoral trusts, while the INC received Rs 298.7795 cr, representing 7.81% of the total donations.
AITC received Rs 102 cr or 2.67% of the total donations received by all parties from all 10 Electoral Trusts.
19 other political parties collectively received a total of Rs 267.9178 cr from all 10 electoral trusts.

Month-wise Donations Received by Electoral Trusts for FY 2024–25

The highest donations were received in April 2024 (Rs 1,217.0821 cr) and October 2024 (Rs 1,021.525 cr), making these the peak contribution months.
Moderate contribution levels were seen in May 2024 (Rs 934.3919 cr), while most other months recorded relatively low inflows.
Progressive Electoral Trust (Rs 915 cr) was active mainly in October 2024, while other trusts recorded only sporadic and comparatively small monthly inflows.

Observations of ADR

5(33.33%) of the 15 Electoral Trusts that submitted their annual reports for FY 2024-25 declared that they received nil contributions in that year. Between FY 2013-14 and 2024-25, 2 Electoral Trusts have declared that they have not received any donations since the year of their registration or whose reports are not available in public domain while one Electoral Trust has declared receiving contributions only once since registered. This raises a question on the continuation of registration of such electoral trusts that fail to fulfill their primary objective of distributing contributions received by them to the political parties concerned.
The contribution reports for FY 2024-25 of 5 out of 20 registered electoral trusts are not available on the website of the ECI, even after three months since the deadline. These include Swadeshi Electoral Trust, AB General Electoral Trust, PD General Electoral Trust, Janta Nirvachak Electoral Trust and Independent Electoral Trust.
During FY 2024–25, Harmony Electoral Trust, which was approved by the CBDT on January 20, 2023 for the period A.Y. 2023–24 to A.Y. 2025–26, does not appear in the Election Commission of India’s updated list of approved electoral trusts uploaded on 02-07-2024. Further, Harmony Electoral Trust received total contributions of Rs 35.55 cr from all sources, which is permissible under Rule 17CA of the Income Tax Rules, 1962. However, the Trust paid/disbursed a total of Rs 35.65 cr to political parties, which is Rs 10 lakh more than the total contributions received.

Recommendations of ADR

Clause 8(1) of the Electoral Trust Scheme, while explaining the process for withdrawal of approval states that “The CBDT may withdraw the approval granted under this Scheme if it is satisfied that the electoral trust has ceased its activities or its activities are not genuine or are not carried out in accordance with all or any of the conditions laid down under the Scheme. Thus, the approval of the JaiHind Electoral Trust, which has never received any contribution since its registration, should be withdrawn.
The names of electoral trusts, currently, do not indicate the name of the company/group of companies which set up the trusts. In order to have greater transparency regarding details of corporates which fund political parties, it would be ideal to include the name of the parent company in the name of the electoral trust.
Those electoral trusts, which have not responded to and complied with the guidelines circulated by the ECI should be heavily penalized as indicated in the notification issued by the ECI to the Trusts.
All corporates should make details of their political contributions along with names of political parties contributed to available in public domain through their websites (in annual reports or in a dedicated page) for increasing transparency in political financing.