Number Theory: Big public donations are just a fraction of political funding

.

Political parties are mandated to disclose the details of donations of ₹20,000 and higher. This disclosure for 2023-24 – the financial year just preceding the 2024 Lok Sabha elections – shows that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was far ahead of the Congress, its nearest rival in national elections, in terms of donation receipts. However, there is more to political funding than the latest data uploaded by the Election Commission of India (ECI). Here are three charts that explain this.

Supporters of the BJP at an election rally. (AP Photo) (AP)

Big public donations are just a fraction of political funding

• 
  The donation gap between BJP and Congress was bigger before 2024 Lok Sabha elections than the last polls

  The data for the 2023-24 fiscal year shows that the BJP received donations worth ₹2,244 crore, almost eight times the ₹281 crore that the Congress received. While this is in line with the trend of BJP receiving more funds than the Congress since 2014-15, the gap was smaller in 2018-19, the fiscal year preceding the 2019 elections, when the BJP received around five times the amount received by the Congress. The Congress contested only 328 of 543 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha, 93 fewer than in 2019, and its lowest ever. The BJP on the other hand, contested 441 seats, marginally more than the 436 seats it contested in 2019. To be sure, the BJP and the Congress don’t just contest Lok Sabha elections. A sum of the donations received by them in the four fiscal years leading to the Lok Sabha election (2020-21 to 2023-24) shows that the BJP received 7.6 times the amount Congress did. This ratio is almost the same as what it was in the four-year period preceding the 2019 Lok Sabha election (2015-16 to 2018-19).
• 
  These donations are only a fraction of even the known sources of political funding

  The donations discussed above are not the only known sources of political funding. We also know the details of political funding through the electoral bonds route – a scheme active from 2017-18 to 2023-24 -- following a Supreme Court order earlier this year that made this information public. Moreover, parties are also mandated to file annual audit reports, with details on other sources of income, such as those earned through membership fees. This shows that among the three sources of political funding, the donations of ₹20,000 or higher are just one part. It was only 29% and 34% of the funds received by the Congress and the BJP from 2017-18 to 2022-23, the period for which details of all three sources are public. In 2023-24, for which data for only electoral bonds and the big public donations is available, the Congress received three times as much funds from the former than the latter. On the other hand, BJP’s receipts from these public donations were 1.3 times its receipts from electoral bonds.
• 
  And known sources account for the bulk of political funding now

  If electoral bonds are counted as a known source of funding – the entities donating funds through this route have been revealed following the Supreme Court order – 33% of funds received by the Congress and 75% of funds received by the BJP from 2004-05 to 2022-23 would be from known sources. The BJP received almost half of all the funds that were donated through electoral bonds.