BJP has received a whopping 3,967.14 crores rupees as donations in the run up to General elections in 2024. The highlight is the increase of 87 percent in the donation amount as compared to last financial year. In 2022-23, the party received 2,120.06 crore rupees.
Interestingly, on the other hand, the government has wrote off loans of several business houses worth 12 lakh crores in the last one decade since they are in power. If that was not all, 28 elite businessmen from India fled the country duping the banks with several lakh crores.
“The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) indeed saw a significant increase in donations, with an 87% rise in contributions reported for the fiscal year 2023-24. According to the available data, the BJP received Rs 3,967.14 crore in donations, a notable increase from the previous year’s figures. This surge in funding coincided with the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, where the share of donations from electoral bonds to the BJP decreased to 43% of its total contributions from 61% in the previous year, reflecting a shift in the party’s funding sources even as overall donations increased.”
Regarding the claim about the Indian government writing off loans, there have been allegations and criticisms from opposition leaders like Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, who have accused the government of waiving loans worth around Rs 16 lakh crore for billionaire friends or corporate entities. However, the specifics of these write-offs appear to be more nuanced:Mallikarjun Kharge claimed in 2022 that the Modi government had written off loans worth Rs 10 lakh crore from 2017-18 onwards, leading to significant losses for public sector banks.
Rahul Gandhi has also accused the government of loan waivers for billionaires, with figures around Rs 16 lakh crore, suggesting these funds could have been used for public welfare like job creation or farmer loan waivers.
A few years ago, late Sitaram Yechury from CPI(M) made similar allegations, stating the government wrote off about Rs 16 lakh crore in loans to private investors, contrasting this with the government’s stance on not allocating funds to public sector units like Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP).
Supriya Shrinate from INC mentioned that in the last five years, the government wrote off loans amounting to Rs 10 lakh crore, with only 13% recovery, pointing to issues within the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) and National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).
“These claims often come with political undertones and might not encompass the full context of loan write-offs or the reasons behind them, such as non-performing assets (NPAs) management. The actual figures and specifics of these write-offs would require detailed financial audits or government reports for accuracy, which are not directly cited in the provided web results.”
Thus, while the BJP’s donations significantly increased, and there are allegations of substantial loan write-offs by the government, the exact correlations or causations between these two events would need further scrutiny and official financial data to be conclusively linked or analyzed.
IN THE run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in 2024, donations to the BJP shot up 87% from the previous year to touch Rs 3,967.14 crore, while the share of electoral bonds in the party’s total contributions decreased to less than half, as per the BJP’s annual audit report for 2023-2024.
The annual report, published by the Election Commission on Monday, showed that voluntary contributions to the ruling party increased from Rs 2,120.06 crore in 2022-2023 to Rs 3,967.14 crore in 2023-2024.
“According to the report, the BJP got Rs 1,685.62 crore in the form of electoral bonds, or 43% of its total contributions. In 2022-2023, the party had got Rs 1,294.14 crore in the form of electoral bonds, forming 61% of the total contributions.”
In February last year, the electoral bond scheme was scrapped by the Supreme Court, which held it unconstitutional.
As expected for a Lok Sabha election year, the BJP’s expenditure on election/ general propaganda increased from Rs 1,092.15 crore in the previous year to Rs 1,754.06 crore. On advertisements and publicity the party spent Rs 591.39 crore.
While the Congress was a distant second to the BJP in terms of donations, it saw a higher spike in contributions in the election year. The Congress’s annual report showed that the party’s grants/ donations/ contributions increased 320% from Rs 268.62 crore in 2022-2023 to Rs 1,129.66 crore in 2023-2024.
Electoral bonds accounted for 73% of the total donations to the party at Rs 828.36 crore, a jump from Rs 171.02 crore in 2022-2023. Election expenditure by the Congress increased to Rs 619.67 crore, from Rs 192.55 crore the previous year.
With the Supreme Court scrapping the electoral bond scheme just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, 2023-2024 was the last financial year in which parties could avail of the anonymous funding. The BJP was the biggest beneficiary of the scheme, getting about half of the total electoral bonds sold from April 2019 till the scheme was scrapped (Rs 6,060 crore), followed by the Trinamool Congress (Rs 1,609.53 crore) and the Congress (Rs 1,421.87 crore).
“As per the TMC’s annual audit report for 2023-2024, which was published by the EC last week, the party’s income increased to Rs 646.39 crore from Rs 333.46 crore the previous year. Electoral bonds accounted for about 95% of its income.”
*Input Courtesy: The Indian Express story by Damini Nath appearing on 28.01.2025
