Thu. Mar 28th, 2024
BJP releases last list of 6 candidates for Rajasthan Assembly elections

BJP has declared in its latest contribution report filed with the Election Commission that it was able to raise over Rs 400 crore in 2017-18, almost twenty times more than the amount raised by the main opposition party, Congress.

Congress was able to raise a meagre Rs 26 crore, the contribution report revealed.
The figure is likely to jump significantly in the annual audited accounts of both the political
parties. Sources said that once the full audited reports are filed, the actual amount for
the BJP could be close to Rs 1,000 crore. Both the BJP and Congress are yet to file their
annual audited income-tax returns and balance sheets for 2017-18.

Also, political parties are yet to declare any electoral bond-based funding, but it is likely to
reflect in the annual audited accounts of the two parties, with BJP expected to get the
lion’s share.

The Centre’s ruling party has received more than Rs 144 crore from the Prudent Electoral
Trust, which was able to generate Rs 169 crore in 2017-18. Aditya Birla General Electoral
Trust, which gave Rs 1 crore to the Congress, handed over Rs 12 crore to the BJP. The
Muruguppa Group-backed Triumph Electoral Trust has given an equal amount of Rs 1
crore each to the BJP and the Congress. Electoral trusts apart, Cadila Healthcare (over Rs 13 crore), Micro Labs Pvt Ltd and USV Pvt Ltd (Rs 9 crore each), Cipla (Rs 9 crore) and Alembic Pharmaceuticals and Mahaveer Medicate (Rs 6 crore) are the top contributors of the BJP. Real estate developers like Lodha (Rs 6.5 crore), J Kumar Infrastructure Projects (Rs 5 crore) and Rare Enterprises (Rs 9 crore) also contributed to the BJP coffers.

Since the BJP came to power in 2014, contributions to the party expanded by about 53% — from Rs 673.81 crore in 2013-2014 to Rs 1,034.27 crore in 2016-2017. The Congress party, during the period, has actually seen its income decline by 62% — from Rs 598.06
crore to Rs 225.36 crore.

While ruling parties are known to raise more funds than the others, the gap in case of the BJP and other parties is unusually high, as per the internal assessments carried out by the EC and political observers.

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