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In the 2024-25 electoral cycle, the BJP outpaced Congress in political donations, securing over ₹6,000 crore compared to Congress's mere ₹522 crore. This funding surge follows the Supreme Court's scrapping of the Electoral Bond scheme, shifting the landscape of political financing in India.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received ₹6,088 crore as political donations in 2024-25, the details available on Election Commission website have revealed.
The contribution that the ruling party has received in 2024-25, the year of Lok Sabha elections, is way more than ₹4,000 crore it received in 2023-24, according to the contribution reports submitted by political parties with the Election Commission of India.
The BJP’s contribution is about 12 times the collection of the Congress party, which received ₹522 crore in the same year. The Congress had received ₹1,130 crore as political funding in 2023-24.
| Prudent electoral trust | 2180.7 |
| Progressive electoral trust | 757.6 |
| AB General electoral trust | 606 |
| New Democratic electoral trust | 150 |
| Serum Institute of India | 100 |
| Rungta group | 95 |
| Bajaj group | 74 |
| ITC group | 72.5 |
| Hero Enterprise | 70 |
| Vedanta group | 65 |
| (Source: Election Commission of India) | |
The political funding received by political parties in 2024-25 is significant as this was the first full year after the Electoral Bond scheme of political funding allowing anonymous donations was scrapped by Supreme Court of India in February 2024.
Electoral Trust is set up by multiple companies to distribute the contributions to the political parties.
Thirteen of the 19 electoral trusts have submitted the reports so far with the poll panel for the year 2024-2025. An electoral trust is mandated to distribute at least 95% of contributions to parties it received in a fiscal.
The contribution reports available on the poll panel’s website are about the funds political parties received from donors who gave away more than ₹20,000, as well as contribution reports by the Prudent electoral trust about the donations they made to political parties.
As per these reports, the BJP received 85 per cent of overall political funding from these trusts in 2024-25. A year before the Lok Sabha election year, the saffron party had cornered 56 per cent of overall funding. Lok Sabha elections 2024 were held between 19 April and 1 June in 2024.
| Prudent electoral trust | 216.3 |
| Progressive electoral trust | 77.3 |
| Century Plywoods (India) Limited | 26.0 |
| ITC Limited | 15.5 |
| AB General electoral trust | 15 |
| Kotak group | 10 |
| Hindustan Zinc Limited | 10 |
| The Sandur Manganese & Iron Ores Limited | 9.5 |
| Rajeev Gowda | 4,2 |
| Derive Investments | 4 |
| (Source: Election Commission of India) | |
Before 2024, electoral bonds accounted for the bulk of political funding received by parties. Since the scheme was scrapped by the Supreme Court in February 2024, the political funding reported in 2024-25 is mostly through electoral trusts.
Prudent Electoral Trust had made the most of the political funding, the report said. The trust donated ₹2,181 crore to the BJP, and ₹216 crore to the Congress. Among the companies, the largest contribution to Prudent came from Elevated Avenue Realty LLP, a firm linked to Larsen & Toubro, an engineering and technology conglomerate, amounting to ₹500 crore.
The BJP received 85 percent of overall political funding from electoral trusts in 2024-25.
Progressive Electoral Trust is the second biggest political funder. The trust has donated ₹757.6 crore to the BJP and ₹77.3 crore to the Congress.
AB General Trust, which donated ₹606 crore to the BJP and ₹15 crore to the Congress, is third largest contributor of political funding among electoral trusts.
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