Donations above ₹20,000 received by national political parties amounted to ₹102.02 crore in 2015-16, with the BJP accounting for ₹76.85 crore, thrice the aggregate of five other political parties, says the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR).

However, the total donations of these parties plunged 84 per cent by ₹528.67 crore in 2015-16, from 2014-15, the year when the Lok Sabha elections were held.

The corporate and business sector was the highest donor to political parties, contributing ₹77.28 crore (75.75 per cent). Of this, the BJP got the biggest pie of ₹67.99 crore, followed by Congress (INC), ₹8.83 crore. Individual donors gave ₹23.41 crore (22.95 per cent) of the total donations in 2015-16.

ADR, a non-profit election watchdog which analyses the donations report submitted by parties to the Election Commission annually, said: “The donations declared by the BJP are more than thrice the aggregate declared by the INC, NCP, CPI, CPM and AITC for the same period.” However, there was a steep fall in donations after the Lok Sabha polls in 2014-15, with the sharpest decline of 98 per cent reported by the Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party, from ₹ 38.82 crore in 2014-15 to ₹ 71 lakh in 2015-16. Donations to the BJP decreased from ₹437.35 crore during 2014-15 to ₹76.85 crore in 2015-16 (by 82 per cent).

“It is to be noted that BJP’s donations had increased 156 per cent between 2013-14 and 2014-15, while that of INC had increased 137 per cent during the same period,” ADR said.

Cash donations accounted for ₹1.45 crore of the total ₹102.02 crore, with the BJP declaring only ₹51,000 from Bihar. Congress declared the maximum cash donations of ₹1.17 crore from 10 States/Union Territories, followed by the Communist Party of India with ₹22.22 lakh from 12 States/UTs.

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