New DelhiDecember 21, 2025 08:05 AM IST
First published on: Dec 21, 2025 at 08:05 AM IST
THE scrapping of the Electoral Bond Scheme by the Supreme Court in February 2024 has not made any dent on the donations received by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the following financial year. In fact, the donations have risen sharply in 2024-25, the first full year after the scheme allowing anonymous donations was junked.
According to the Contribution Report for 2024-25 submitted by the BJP on Friday, the party received Rs 6,073 crore during the year, about 53 per cent higher than Rs 3,967 crore received in 2023-24. Of this Rs 3,967 crore donations, about 42 per cent came through Electoral Bonds.
A detailed reading of the report revealed that in 2024-25, electoral trusts donated Rs 3,112 crore of the total Rs 3,811 crore they received in contribution (see report alongside) to the BJP. The balance Rs 2,961 crore came from contributions by all others, including individuals and corporates.
Besides the trusts, several companies figured among the BJP’s top 20 donors during 2024-25. These were: Serum Institute of India Pvt Ltd (Rs 100 crore), Rungta Sons Private Limited (Rs 95 crore) and Vedanta Limited (Rs 67 crore). Other significant donors include Macrotech Developers Limited (Rs 65 crore), Derive Investments (Rs 53 crore), Modern Road Makers Pvt Ltd (Rs 52 crore) and Lotus Hometextiles Limited (Rs 51 crore).
Safal Goyal Realty LLP, ITC Limited, Global Ivy Ventures LLP, ITC Infotech India Ltd, Hero Enterprises Partner Ventures, Mankind Pharma Limited, Suresh Amritlal Kotak, and Hindustan Zinc Limited were also some other big contributors to the party in 2024-25.
In fact, donations to the BJP in 2024-25 were the highest in the last five years.
The BJP’s Contribution Report, dated December 8, covers all individual donations over Rs 20,000. As of now, corporates can make donations through cheque, Demand Draft or bank transfers to parties. The parties are required to declare these donations in their contribution reports and annual audit reports submitted to the EC.
The government had introduced the Electoral Bond Scheme in 2017-2018. Elaborating on it, the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said: “The conventional practice of funding the political system was to take donations in cash and undertake these expenditures in cash. The sources are anonymous or pseudonymous. The quantum of money was never disclosed… I do believe that donations made online or through cheques remain an ideal method of donating to political parties. However, these have not become very popular in India since they involve disclosure of donor’s identity.”
Under the scheme, political parties received over Rs 16,000 crore over the years in anonymous donations, the majority being received by the BJP. After declaring the scheme unconstitutional, the Supreme Court had in February 2024 ordered the State Bank of India and the ECI to publish the names of all donors and beneficiaries.
(With inputs from Lalmani Verma, Abhinaya Harigovind, Harikishan Sharma)