Party funding: Richest electoral trust sends BJP its biggest cheque

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party was the biggest beneficiary of the electoral trust that raises the most money from the industry for political contributions, in fiscal 2017-18.

Prudent Electoral Trust gave almost all the money it generated - Rs 144 crore of Rs 169 crore - to the ruling party, according to the trust’s contribution report for the year.

DLF was the biggest donor to Prudent — formerly known as Satya Electoral Trust — with Rs 52 crore, followed by the Bharti Group at Rs 33 crore, Shroff Group’s UPL at Rs 22 crore and Gujarat’s Torrent Group at Rs 20 crore. DCM Shriram gave Rs 13 crore, the Cadila Group, Rs 10 crore and Haldia Energy, Rs 8 crore, according to the report.


About Rs 10 crore went to the cash-strapped Congress and Rs 5 crore to Odisha’s Biju Janata Dal. In the past, Prudent has usually donated to half a dozen or so political parties, including the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), Samajwadi Party (SP), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD).

Close to 90% of all corporate donations to electoral trusts have gone to Prudent over the past four years. However, some observers said trusts’ role may diminish with launch of electoral bonds as funding instruments. BJP got Rs 144 crore in 18 installments during April 2017 to March 2018. Four cheque payments were made to Congress in 2017 and three to BJD in late 2017 and January 2018.

DLF, Bharti, Torrent and UPL have consistently led funding to Prudent, which has been making its largest contribution to BJP for the past four years. It gave Rs 41.37 crore of Rs 85.4 crore (48%) in FY14, when it was known as Satya. In FY15, it gave Rs 106 crore of Rs 141 crore to BJP. In FY16, it donated Rs 45 crore of Rs 47 crore (96%) to BJP and Rs 2 crore to Congress. In FY17, as Prudent Trust, it gave Rs 252.22 crore of Rs 283.73 crore to BJP (88.9%), while Congress got Rs 14 crore.

22 Registered Electoral Trusts
In FY18, BJP got 85% of the kitty. While Prudent towers above all other trusts, the funding pattern is somewhat similar at the next rank too— the AB General Electoral Trust of the Aditya Birla Group. It gave Rs 21 crore in FY18, of which Rs 12.5 crore went to BJP, Rs 1 crore to Congress and Rs 8 crore to BJD. The Murugappa Group-backed Triumph Electoral Trust has been more equitable, giving Rs 1 crore each to BJP and Congress from its Rs 2 crore kitty.

Some trusts back just one party. The Janshakti Electoral Trust gave its entire Rs 5 lakh fund to Jammu and Kashmir’s National Conference while the Jankalyan Electoral Trust sent its Rs 51 lakh to the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). While there are as many 22 registered electoral trusts in India, the rest have been largely inoperative, as per data gleaned from contribution reports.

The erstwhile Satya Electoral Trust came to prominence ahead of the previous Lok Sabha election. A clear leader from the start, it collected the maximum donations that year with Rs 85.4 crore. Its FY17 collection of Rs 283.73 crore has been its highest. It was originally backed by 33 companies associated with the Bharti Group.

It earlier operated out of the Bharti Group office in Delhi’s Vasant Kunj. It subsequently moved to Hans Bhawan on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg and changed its name to Prudent. Bharti Group has repeatedly said Prudent is an independent electoral trust governed by an independent board. It has also maintained that various leading corporates are donors to the trust, including Hero MotoCorp, Bharti Airtel, Jubilant Foodworks, GMMCO, National Engineering Industries, Orient Cement, DLF, JK Tyre and Industries, Indiabulls Housing Finance and Kalpataru Power Transmission, among others.

Data show that six electoral trusts donated about Rs 105 crore to national parties between FY05 and FY12 before transparency guidelines were introduced in 2014 mandating disclosure of donors. Between FY14 and FY17, nine registered electoral trusts donated a total Rs 637.54 crore to political parties. The contribution to political parties rose risen from Rs 85 crore in FY14 to Rs 325.27 crore in FY17. Of this, Prudent mobilised over Rs 280 crore.