Corporate majors like Cadila Healthcare Ltd and Torrent Group were among the top donors from Gujarat to have contributed to the election kitty of Indian National Congress (INC) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

“Analysis of donations received by national parties-2013-14”, a report released on Wednesday by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW) suggested that, after Delhi and Haryana, corporate houses from Gujarat were the third largest contributors to political parties in the last financial year.

The Ahmedabad-based Torrent Group, it said, is among the top 15 donors to the Sonia Gandhi-led INC. Both its listed companies, Torrent Power and Torrent Pharmaceuticals, donated Rs one crore each to the INC in March 2014.

On the other hand, Cadila Healthcare Ltd donated Rs one crore to NCP, an ally of the INC in the UPA. Similarly, Zydus Wellness Ltd, a listed company of the Zydus Cadila Group, donated Rs one crore to the NCP. Like Torrent’s, the Zydus Group’s donations are also among the top 15 donations made by corporate houses to political parties.

Interestingly, of the total number of donors from across India (881) who contributed a total of Rs 76.93 crore, with a minimum of Rs 20,000 each, to national parties, only 0.5 per cent were from Gujarat but the amount they donated was nearly 4% of the total donations received by these parties.

The Bharti Group’s Satya Electoral Trust donated the maximum amount of Rs 36.5 crore to INC, followed by the A V Patil Foundation (Rs 5 crore) and Bharat Forge Ltd (Rs 2.5 crore). None of these three donors had donated to INC in FY 2012-13.

The top three donors to NCP were Satya Electoral Trust (Rs 4 crore), followed by Shirke Infrastructure (Rs 2 crore) and Serum Institute of India Ltd (Rs 1.50 crore), none of which had donated to this party in 2012-13, the report said.

While other parties have submitted to the Election Commission of India their poll accounts in September this year, the ruling BJP is the only major national party which is yet to do so. The BJP had declared having received Rs83.19 crore from 2,941 donations in 2012-13, according to the report.

 

The report pointed out that   90% of donations to the national parties came from Corporates/business houses.  The total donations of INC, NCP and CPI during FY 2013-14 increased 517% to Rs 62.69 crores over the previous financial year, 2012-13, while the donations to CPI(M) decreased by 45%, from Rs 3.81 crores during FY 2012-13 to Rs 2.097 crores during FY 2013-14.

A total of Rs 3.81 crores (84%) was donated by known party members of INC and Rs 1.82 crores (89%) was donated by known party members of CPM.

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