BJP declares donations worth more than three times of aggregate sum for 5 other parties: ADR report

The BJP has declared donations worth more than three times the aggregate amount for five other parties, including the Congress, TMC and NCP, according to a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms.

The report stated that the BJP also disclosed donations from the Amaravati Municipal Corporation, where both the mayor and the deputy mayor are from the saffron party. The party’s declarations also included land received from at least three donors.

"The donations declared by the BJP are more than three times the aggregate declared by the Congress, NCP, CPI, CPM and TMC, for the same period (Rs 785.77 crore against Rs 228.035 crore declared by the remaining parties)," it said.

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The report, prepared by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), focuses on donations received by the national political parties, above Rs 20,000, during the financial year 2019-20, as submitted by the parties to the Election Commission of India (ECI).

According to the report, the BJP declared a donation of Rs 4.80 lakh from the Amravati Municipal Corporation.

"No details of address, bank name, PAN, among others, have been provided by the party against this donation. A casual search on the internet shows that the aforesaid donor is a Government of Maharashtra local body (as mentioned on their website). It raises questions on the legality of the contribution made by a municipal corporation which is a governing body (whose mayor and deputy mayor are from BJP) to a political party," the poll rights group said.

"The BJP declared 570 donations of Rs 149.875 crore, AITC collected 52 donations worth Rs 7.1035 crore, Congress collected 25 donations of Rs 2.6875 crore and NCP collected two donations of Rs 3.005 crore having incomplete cheque/DD details where cheque number, bank details on which it was drawn and the date on which the cheque was received/ encashed is not provided. Thus, without the complete cheque/Demand Draft (DD) details, it would be a time-consuming process to link the donors against their donations and hence trace the money trail," the report said.

The report said the BJP declared receiving land from three donors of a total value of Rs 1.516 crore.

"The three donations are from Jhanjharpur in Bihar worth Rs 36.80 lakh, Rs 50 lakh and Rs 64.88 lakh. Apart from the names, location of donors, PAN details of one donor, no other details have been provided like donors' address, bank details, PAN of remaining two donors, address and ‘khasra’ (plot) number of land, type of land agricultural/commercial, among others," it said.

The report added that the CPM and CPI also failed to declare the details of cheque and DD (cheque number, bank on which it was drawn and the date) for a total of 39 donations amounting to Rs 1.0786 crore and 29 donations amounting to Rs 52.17 lakh, respectively.