Page 40 - Banking Finance April 2020

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from 2123 donations of which donations to BJP alone Further in the budget of 2017-18, the Union Government
amounted to Rs.532.27 crores from 1197 donations, came with a new and an innovative instrument of political
comprising of almost 90.31% of the donations received by funding, popularly known as 'Electoral bond scheme'. The
national political parties. electoral bond is a bearer bond in the nature of a promissory
note issued by selected branches of SBI in multiple of
Table VII: Amount of donation (above Rs.1000, Rs.10,000, Rs.1,00,000, Rs.10,00,000 and
Rs.20000) declared by National Parties for the Rs.1,00,00,000 for a period of 10 days in the month of
January, April, July and October but in the year of Lok sabha
Financial Year 2015-16 and 2016-17 and
election an additional 30 days will be specified by Central
Growth in funding over the 2015-16 Government. The bond has tenure of 15 days and whatever
National 2015-16 2016-17 Growth in money received through sale of these bonds will be credited
Parties Amount Amount funding over to account of registered political party which has polled one
(Rs. in crores) (Rs. in crores) 2015-16* percent of the vote in the state or national election.
BJP 76.85 532.27 593%
This scheme not only bypassed the existing RTI Act but also
INC 20.42 41.9 105% paved way for large scale anonymous donations via electoral
NCP 0.71 6.34 793% bonds as the identity of the donors and recipients remained
CPM 1.81 5.25 190% undisclosed. This will pave way for greater corporate
donations and reduce transparency in disclosing the source
AITC 0.65 2.15 231%
of political funding. The biggest beneficiary of the electoral
CPI 1.58 1.44 (9)%
bond scheme is the ruling BJP party as it bagged 94.5% of
Source: ADR Report, 30th May 2018 the bonds amounting to around Rs.210 crore of the total
* Computed 222 crore bonds issued in March, 2018. The total voluntary
contribution to BJP stands at Rs.989 crores in 2017-18. The
The donations received by BJP in the year 2016-17 rose by known donations as per RTI Act amount to Rs.437 crore.
593% over the previous year 2015-16. NCP registered The coming years will prove that whether the electoral
maximum increase of 793%. Donations to AITC increased bonds will bring more opaqueness or more transparency in
by 231%, INC and CPM registered an increase of 105% and the electoral funding scheme as claimed by the ruling Union
190% respectively. Only CPI registered a decline in donation government.
by 9%.
The absolute figures for BJP are quite large compared to
Moreover it is seen that of the total donations received by INC. The figures indicate that corporate houses are favoring
National parties, corporate accounted for 708 donations BJP more than INC as to have a stable Government which
amounting to Rs.563.24 crores (95.56% of total donations). will ease the doing of business and also the policies and
The breakup of donations received by two largest national reforms brought in by BJP are more in favor of corporate
parties is as follows: sector. Since 2014 the policies like Make in India, Digital
Table VIII: The break up of donations received by BJP and INC

Total Corporate Sector Individual Sector
Donations
No.of Total Percentage No.of Total Percentage
Donors Donations wise (%)* Donors Donations wise (%)*
BJP Rs.532.27 cr 531 Rs.515.43 cr 96.84 663 Rs.16.82 cr 3.16
INC Rs.41.90 cr 98 Rs.36.06 cr 86.06 501 Rs.5.84 cr 13.94
Source: ADR Report, 30th May,2018
* Computed

38 | 2020 | APRIL | BANKING FINANCE