.
Anonymous Donors 'RUN' Political
Parties in India, Congress Tops the List
LUCKNOW: The major source of the income of political
parties in India is through donations and voluntary contributions. However,
majority donations comes from undisclosed contributors.
According to the study conducted by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), an umbrella body of non-governmental organizations working across the country for transparency in political and electoral system, the top five political parties with the highest total income between financial year (FY) 2004-05 and FY 2010-11 (last 7 years) are the Congress with Rs 2008 crore followed by Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) with Rs 994 crore, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) - Rs 484 crore, Communist Party Marxist (CPM) - Rs 417 crore and Samajwadi Party (SP) - Rs 279 crore.
However, between 80-90% of the income of these political parties is through donations from unnamed sources. According to rules, it is mandatory for the political parties to provide names of the contributors who donate above Rs 20,000. But figures available show that ""named sources of income"" form a very small percentage of total income of the parties.
Sample this: Of the national parties for FY 2009-2010 and FY 2010-2011, BJP's donations from named donors amounted to 22.76% of the total income. The congress has shown a mere 11.89% of their income from named contributions, followed by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) with 4.64% and CPM - 1.29%.
Significantly, the BSP has declared that it has not received any donations above Rs 20,000 in FY 2009-2010 and FY 2010-2011 even though its total income for the two years is Rs 172.67 crore. This means that all the donations were below Rs 20,000 and were from 'anonymous' sources. The CPI has shown 57.02% of total Income from donations above Rs 20,000.
MORE ......According to the study conducted by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), an umbrella body of non-governmental organizations working across the country for transparency in political and electoral system, the top five political parties with the highest total income between financial year (FY) 2004-05 and FY 2010-11 (last 7 years) are the Congress with Rs 2008 crore followed by Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) with Rs 994 crore, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) - Rs 484 crore, Communist Party Marxist (CPM) - Rs 417 crore and Samajwadi Party (SP) - Rs 279 crore.
However, between 80-90% of the income of these political parties is through donations from unnamed sources. According to rules, it is mandatory for the political parties to provide names of the contributors who donate above Rs 20,000. But figures available show that ""named sources of income"" form a very small percentage of total income of the parties.
Sample this: Of the national parties for FY 2009-2010 and FY 2010-2011, BJP's donations from named donors amounted to 22.76% of the total income. The congress has shown a mere 11.89% of their income from named contributions, followed by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) with 4.64% and CPM - 1.29%.
Significantly, the BSP has declared that it has not received any donations above Rs 20,000 in FY 2009-2010 and FY 2010-2011 even though its total income for the two years is Rs 172.67 crore. This means that all the donations were below Rs 20,000 and were from 'anonymous' sources. The CPI has shown 57.02% of total Income from donations above Rs 20,000.
