Press Release: 6 electoral trusts which have declared receiving contributions during FY 2023-24, have received a total amount of Rs 1218.3995 cr from corporates and individuals
ADR India
Analysis of Contribution Reports of Electoral Trusts for FY 2023-24
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 6th 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 19 Electoral Trusts, registered with the CBDT, submitted their contribution details for FY 2023-24 to the ECI of which only 6 declared to have received any donations during that year. The following report of ADR analyses the details of donors of 6 Electoral Trusts formed after January, 2013 and the contributions made by the Trusts to political parties during FY 2023-24. For a detailed report on the Electoral Trusts Scheme launched by the Central Government, the subsequent circular of the ECI in this regard and ADR’s analysis of the donations report of the Electoral Trusts, please refer here.
Link to complete reports in English & Hindi with details of all contributions received and disbursed by the Electoral Trusts during FY 2023-24 :
Executive Summary
Renewal of approval of Electoral Trusts
13 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 2023-24
- Out of the 19 registered electoral
trusts, 9 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 11 years, FY 2013-14 to 2023-24, declaring contributions received each
year.
- There are 3 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.
- 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.
- 6 electoral trusts which have declared receiving contributions during FY 2023-24, have received a total amount of Rs 1218.3995 cr from corporates and individuals and distributed Rs 1218.36 cr (99.997%) to various political parties.
- 142 Corporate/Business Houses have
contributed Rs 1179.2275 cr to Electoral Trusts in FY 2023-24. 133
Corporate/Business Houses contributed Rs 1036.7275 cr to Prudent
Electoral Trust, 6 companies contributed Rs 132.50 cr to Triumph Electoral Trust, 2
companies contributed Rs 9 cr to Jaybharath Electoral Trust
and 1 company contributed Rs 1 cr to Paribartan Electoral Trust.
- 31 individuals have contributed to Electoral Trusts in FY 2023-24.
22 individuals contributed Rs 38.99 cr to Prudent Electoral Trust, 5
individuals contributed Rs 18 lakhs to Einzigartig Electoral Trust and 4 individuals contributed Rs 20,000 to Swadeshi Electoral Trust.
- ArcelorMittal
Nippon Steel India Ltd and DLF Ltd each contributed the highest amounts worth Rs 100 cr
amongst all donors of the electoral trusts, followed by Maatha
Projects LLP with Rs 75 cr, and
CESC Ltd. and Maruti Suzuki India
Ltd. which contributed Rs 60 cr
each to various trusts.
- Top 10 corporate donors have donated Rs 624.195 cr to electoral trusts, which forms 51.23% of the total donations received by the trusts during FY 2023-24. All these 10 donors contributed to Prudent and Triumph Electoral Trust.
- Prudent Electoral Trust donated Rs 723.785 cr to BJP, in contrast to Rs 256.25 cr contributed in FY 2022-23, while Triumph E.T. donated Rs 127.50 cr of its total income to BJP in FY 2023-24.
- Prudent E.T. donated Rs 156.4025 cr to INC.
- Prudent Electoral Trust donated to 6 political parties, including major parties like BJP, INC, BRS, YSR Congress, TDP and Janasena Party.
- BJP received Rs 856.4575 cr accounting for 70.30% of the total donations received by all political parties from electoral trusts, while the INC received Rs 156.4025 cr, representing 12.84% of the total donations.
- BRS received Rs 85 cr or 6.98% of the total donations received by all parties from all 6 Electoral Trusts.
- Five other political parties, including YSR Congress, TDP, DMK, Janasena Party, and Anna Dravidar Kazhagam, collectively received a total of Rs 119.50 cr from all six electoral trusts.
- Paribartan Electoral Trust disbursed the amount (Rs 1 cr) through Electoral bonds for FY 2023-24.
- 9(60%) of
the 15 Electoral
Trusts that submitted their annual reports for FY
2023-24 declared that they received nil contributions in that year. Between FY
2013-14 and 2023-24, 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 2 Electoral Trusts have 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 2023-24 of 4 out of 19 registered electoral trusts are not available
on the website of the ECI, even after three months since the deadline. These
include Janta Nirvachak Electoral Trust, Independent Electoral
Trust, Small Donations Electoral Trust and Janhit Electoral Trust.
- Paribartan Electoral Trust disbursed the amount (Rs 1 cr) through Electoral bonds for FY 2023-24
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.
Disclaimer
Source for the data used in the report are the Audited accounts/Donations details submitted by the Electoral Trusts to Election Commission of India. ADR does not add or subtract any information, unless the EC changes the data. In particular, no unverified information from any other source is used. The data can be accessed from the websites of the ECI. While all effort has been made to ensure that the information is in keeping with what is mentioned in the statements submitted by the Electoral Trusts, in case of discrepancy between information in this report and that given in their statements, the information reported by the Electoral Trusts should be treated as correct. Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), National Election Watch (NEW) and their volunteers are not responsible or liable for any direct, indirect special, or consequential damages, claims, demands, losses of any kind whatsoever, made, claimed, incurred or suffered by any party arising under or relating to the usage of data provided by ADR through this report.
It is to be noted that ADR undertakes great care and adopts utmost due diligence in analysing and dissemination of the audit and contribution reports of the Electoral Trusts submitted with the Election Commission of India. Such information is only aimed at highlighting the increased misuse of money in our electoral and political process so as to facilitate a system of transparency, accountability and good governance and to enable voters to form an informed choice. Therefore, it is expected that anyone using this report shall undertake due care and utmost precaution while using the data provided by ADR. ADR is not responsible for any mishandling, discrepancy, inability to understand, misinterpretation or manipulation, distortion of the data in such a way so as to benefit or target a particular political party or politician or candidate.
Contact Details
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