Party flags of Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena are on dispaly during Lal Krishna Advani,NDA's Prime ministrial candidate address during an election rally in the western indian city of Mumbai on 6th March,2008

The ruling political party at the Centre, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), received the most of Rs 705.81 crore from 2,987 corporate donors between 2012-13 & 2015-16, according to analysis of known donations above Rs 20,000 from corporates & business houses to national parties by Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), an advocacy. BJP was followed by the Indian National Congress (INC) with Rs 198.16 crore from 167 corporate donors.

Political parties considered by ADR included BJP, INC, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) led by Mayawati was not considered, as it declared that it received no voluntary contributions above Rs 20,000 between 2012-13 & 2015-16.

As many as 1,933 donations--through which national parties received Rs 384.04 crore--did not have PAN details in the contribution form.

We storified a thread of tweets put out on August 18, 2017, to give you an idea of corporate donations to national parties in India between 2012-13 and 2015-16.

(Mallapur is an analyst with IndiaSpend.)

We welcome feedback. Please write to respond@indiaspend.org. We reserve the right to edit responses for language and grammar.

__________________________________________________________________

“Liked this story? Indiaspend.org is a non-profit, and we depend on readers like you to drive our public-interest journalism efforts. Donate Rs 500; Rs 1,000, Rs 2,000.”

Chaitanya Mallapur

    Chaitanya has a masters degree in politics from the University of Mumbai and a bachelor's degree in computer science. His areas of interest are foreign policy and security studies. He has also worked with ET NOW, a business news channel, as an assistant producer in the digital team.