Story so far: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been re-elected to power for the third time in June 2024, was armed with 88% of the donations received by political parties in 2023-24. Analysis of the income and expenditure reports, including donations above ₹20,000 declared by the major national parties show that BJP had an income of ₹4340 crore, including ₹2243 crore in individual donations. Of these BJP only spent ₹2211 crore (50.96%) of its income, noted Association for Democratic Reform (ADR).
The latest set of income and expenditure declarations are the first since the Supreme Court scrapped the Centre’s electoral bonds scheme which had collected ₹16,518 crore in 30 tranches since 2018.
Here’s a look at the political contributions and expenditures of India’s top two national parties.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
Donations
Contributions to the BJP stand at ₹3967 crore for 2023-24. Of these ‘voluntary contributions’, ₹2243 crore come from 8358 donations over ₹20,000, including ₹856 crore via six electoral trusts. Apart from contributions, BJP’s income also includes ₹369 crore in interest and ₹2.7 crore in fees and subscription.
BJP has received ₹2064 crore from corporate houses in donations while individual donors contributed ₹169 crore. The party also received donations from unions/party units worth ₹1.09 crore, while ₹9.147 crore were from undeclared donors. Also, BJP received ₹1685 crore came from electoral bonds – which constitute 38.84% of the party’s total income.
A month-wise analysis of the contributions by ADR found that September 2023 and March 2024 were when BJP received its maximum contributions. However, BJP’s declared dates of donations barely amount to ₹85 crore, while dates of 7996 donations worth ₹2158 crore are unknown. The above-mentioned donations are payments made via cheque/DD or bank transfers.
The top donations to BJP were ₹723 crore from Prudent Electoral Trust and ₹127 crore from Triumph Electoral Trust. While which company donated to the BJP via electoral trusts is not known, the top donors to electoral trusts are Arcelormittal Nippon Steel India Ltd (₹100 crore), DLF (₹100 crore), Maatha Projects (₹75 crore), CESC Ltd (₹60 crore) and Maruti Suzuki India (₹60 crore). BJP also saw a leap in electoral trust contributions from ₹265 crore in 2022-23 to ₹723.785 in 2023-24, coinciding with the Lok Sabha election year.
Expenses and unspent funds
The BJP’s income increased by 83.85% from ₹2360.844 crore during 2022-23 to ₹4340.473 crore in 2023-24. Similarly, its expenses also increased from ₹1361 crore in 2022-23 to ₹2211.7 crore in 2023-24. In both years, 80% of its expenses went to election and general propaganda. In 2022-23, BJP spent ₹1092 crore on its election campaign, while in 2023-24 it spent ₹1754 crore – a 64% increase in expenses. BJP’s poll campaign expenditure in the previous Lok Sabha poll cycle too shows that the party spent ₹792 crores in 2018-19 – a 40% increase from 2017-18 when they spent ₹567 crore.
Currently, BJP has an unspent ₹2128 crore in its kitty – amounting to 49% of its total income. In the previous year too, BJP had not spent around ₹1000 crore – 42% of its income of ₹2360 crore. BJP’s unspent funds have steadily increased over the past two Lok Sabha cycles.
In 2012-2013 — a year prior to the Lok Sabha polls — BJP had unspent funds of ₹101 crore – 31% of its total income of ₹324 crore. This was the last year when BJP’s coffers was lower than the Congress, which had ₹111 crore’s worth of unspent funds. However, the following year (2013-14), BJP’s income bloomed to ₹673 crore, surpassing Congress, which declared ₹598 crore as its income. Incidentally, electoral trusts had been instituted in January 2013, paving the way for corporate funding of political campaigns. By the end of the Lok Sabha elections, BJP had spent ₹328 crore, leaving ₹ 345 crore left in its kitty.
Similarly, in 2017-18, BJP had an excess of ₹268.87 crore – 26% of total income of ₹1027 crore. A year later, in 2018-19, the Modi government instituted the electoral bonds scheme, allowing anonymous funding to political parties via four tranches of bonds released by State Bank of India. The scheme skyrocketed BJP’s income from ₹1027 crore to ₹2410 crore. After the end of the poll cycle, BJP’s unspent funds stood at ₹1404 crore – 58% of its income. The trend shows an expansion of BJP’s war chest, slowly accumulating over the past decade and surpassing the Congress’ spending power for poll campaigns.
Indian National Congress
Donations
The BJP’s prime rival – Congress, had contributions of ₹1129 crore in 2023-24, a 60% increase from 2022-23 when it received ₹452 crore. Of these ‘voluntary contributions’, Congress received ₹828 crore via electoral bonds, and ₹156 crore via electoral trusts. Apart from contributions, Congress also earned ₹58 crores via coupons, ₹21 crore via fees and ₹14 crore via other sources.
In donations, Congress earned ₹190 crore from corporate houses, 24 lakhs from party units and unions and 1.38 lakhs from undeclared donors. The Congress’ top donors were companies via the Prudent Electoral Trust (₹156 crore) and Classic Featherlite Waterfront Developers (₹7 crore). The party has not revealed month-wise donations in its declaration.
Expenses and unspent funds
In 2023-24, the Congress’ income increased to ₹1225 crore from ₹452 crore in 2022-23. Similarly, its expenses too increased from ₹467 crore in 2022-23 to ₹1025 crore in 2023-24. Its expenses include ₹619.67 crore (60.44%) for election campaigns, ₹340 crore for administrative purposes, ₹27 crore for employee costs and ₹37 crore for other expenses. Similar to the BJP, Congress election campaign costs also increased from ₹192 crores to ₹619.67 crore – a 69% increase. However, unlike the BJP, the top expense by Congress in the year prior to the polls (2022-23) was administrative costs of ₹235.85 crore.
In the previous Lok Sabha cycle, the Congress’ election expenditure increased from ₹29 crore in 2017-18 to ₹308 crore in 2018-19. Similarly, the Congress’ top expense in 2017-18 were administrative costs worth ₹86 crore.
Currently, Congress has ₹199 crore in unspent funds in its war chest – 16.31% of its income in 2023-24. However, in the previous year, Congress’ expenditure exceeded its income by ₹14.76 crore.
Since 2012-2013, the last year when its contributions were higher than those of BJP, the Congress treasury has been oscillating between surplus and deficit. The party had unspent funds worth ₹111 crore in 2012-13 – a 26% of its income of ₹425 crore. In 2013-14, Congress’ expenditure exceeded its income, leaving its coffers with a deficit of ₹46 crore. In the next Lok Sabha cycle, Congress had only ₹1.72 crore left unspent in 2017-18 – a mere 1% of its income of ₹199 crore. In the following election year, Congress had ₹448 crore unspent – 48.81% of its income of ₹918 crore.
Unlike the BJP, Congress’ income has been falling in the decade since it has been voted out of power. With an increase in its expenditure on its election campaigns. the party had not managed to accumulate funds to match BJP’s exchequer, putting it on a backfoot.
Published – April 11, 2025 10:31 pm IST