India's governing Congress Party received the largest donations of any political party in the last seven years, and donations to the party's primary opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, were less than half of Congress's.
The figures, culled from documents collected through public interest litigation and Right to Information filings, were compiled by the Association for Democratic Reforms, an independent nonprofit group that is trying to increase transparency in India's democratic political system. Congress, the party that has been leading the coalition governing India for the last eight years, is under increasing pressure to enact reforms and clean up corruption.
The Congress Party received 20 billion rupees ($365 million) in donations during the last seven years, the nonprofit group said Monday, while the Bharatiya Janata Party received 9.9 billion rupees. The major source of donations were trusts affiliated with corporate conglomerates and companies in the mining, construction, infrastructure, power and telecommunications industries, the group said.
These figures may represent just a small fraction of the actual donations made to these political parties, and the amount from unidentified donors far outweigh those identified by political parties.
Under existing law, political parties in India do not need to reveal the source of donations if the amount is less than 20,000 rupees. Political parties made good use of this provision: Congress received only 11.9 percent of its donations from named sources during the 2009-11 time period, while the Bharatiya Janata Party received just 22.8 percent of its donations from named donors. The Bahujan Samaj Party received 4.8 billion rupees in donations during last seven years and did not name any donor in that period.
Political financing is the “basic source†of corruption in India, said Jagdeep Chhokar, a former professor at the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad and a founding member of the Association for Democratic Reforms. “If we can make it transparent, we can make a dent in corruption,†he said.
Still, he added, “Whatever is reported is just tip of the iceberg,†as empirical evidence on the ground “suggests that political parties spend many times more†than these figures show. “A lot of expenditure is just not visible,†he said.
The association spent 14 months retrieving the data by filing public lawsuits and relying on India's Right to Information Act to force parties to divulge their donations.
“All the political parties opposed it tooth and nail,†said Anil Bairwal, national coordinator for th e activist group. India's income tax authorities also refused to cooperate with the group's requests for information, until they were ordered to by India's chief information commissioner. Political parties are required to state their income to the tax department, though these figures are probably significantly underreported.
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