NEW DELHI: Almost 83% of the total Rs 915 crore political donations routed through the Tata group-controlled Progressive Electoral Trust (PET) in 2024-25 went to BJP, while Congress’ share was a mere 8.4%.A perusal of the contribution reports of various electoral trusts (ET) for 2024-25, now available on the Election Commission website, indicates that the scrapping of electoral bonds by the Supreme Court in Feb 2024 may not have totally dried up the coffers of BJP. The party in office received Rs 757.6 crore from PET, Rs 150 crore from New Democratic ET, over Rs 30.1 crore from Harmony ET, Rs 21 crore from Triumph ET, Rs 9.5 lakh from Jan Kalyan ET and Rs 7.75 lakh from Einzigartig ET. This adds up to nearly Rs 959 crore.PET, which receives political donations from various Tata group companies and disburses them in Lok Sabha election year, had passed on a total Rs 454 crore to three parties in 2018-19, of which 75% or Rs 356 crore went to BJP, Rs 55.6 crore to the Congress and Rs 43 crore to Trinamool Congress.Since the 2024-25 contribution report of Prudent Electoral Trust, through which the lion’s share of political donations is routed with BJP being the biggest beneficiary, is not uploaded on EC website, its disbursals to the governing party cannot be assessed.BJP received Rs 856.4 crore via trusts, of which Rs 724 crore came from Prudent, and Rs 1,685 cr from bonds in 23-24.Congress received Rs 77.3 crore from PET in 2024-25, Rs 5 crore from New Democratic ET and Rs 9.5 lakh from Jan Kalyan ET. Prudent contributed Rs 216.33 crore to Congress and A B General ET, Rs 15 crore, as per contribution report filed by Congress for 2024-25. Thus, the grand old party received over Rs 313 crore of its total 517 crore contributions in 2024-25 through the trust route.PET also disbursed donations worth Rs 10 crore each to Trinamool, YSR Congress Party, Shiv Sena, Biju Janata Dal, Bharat Rashtra Samithi, JDU, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and LJP-Ram Vilas.Interestingly, Congress contributions in 2024-25 fall way short of the Rs 828 crore it had received via bonds in 2023-24, but are higher than its Rs 171-crore bond income in 2022-23, a non-general election year. Similarly, TMC’s Rs 184.5 crore receipts in 2024-25, of which Rs 153.5 crore were through trusts, are no match for its Rs 612 crore receipts via bonds in 2023-24. BJD, which received Rs 245.5 crore in bonds in 2023-24, received Rs 60 crore in donations, including Rs 35 crore via trusts, in 2024-25. BRS not only saw its Rs 495 crore contributions in bonds (2023-24) eroded, but its receipts from trusts also dipped to Rs 15 crore from Rs 85 crore in 2023-24.The Tata Group companies that donated to PET include Tata Sons Pvt Ltd (Rs 308 crore); TCS (Rs 217.6 crore); Tata Steel (Rs 173 crore); Tata Motors (Rs 49.4 crore); Tata Power (Rs 39.5 crore); Tata Communications (Rs 14.8 crore); and Tata Consumer Products, Tata Elxsi Ltd and Tata Autocomp Systems (Rs 19.7 crore each).Among other trusts, the Mahindra Group-backed New Democratic ET gave Rs 150 crore of its total Rs 160 crore kitty to the BJP, with Congress and Shiv Sena-UBT receiving Rs 5 crore each.Triumph, to which CG Power contributed Rs 20 crore, disbursed Rs 21 crore to BJP and Rs 4 crore to Telugu Desam Party. Harmony ET contributed Rs 30.1 crore to BJP, Rs 3 crore to Shiv Sena-UBT and Rs 2 crore to NCP-Sharad Pawar. Jan Pragati ET disbursed Rs 1 crore to Shiv Sena.
