The Association of Democratic Reforms’ analysis of the income-tax returns and donation statements of select national and regional political parties in FY21, shows that 36% of the sources remained anonymous. Currently, parties are not required to reveal the names of individuals or organisations making donations that are less than ₹20,000 or those who make donations through electoral bonds. According to the ADR, even though the parties were brought under the RTI Act in June 2013, they have still not complied with the decision, thereby making it difficult to find out the sources

Undisclosed sources

The graph shows the amount of funding (in ₹ crore) received in FY21 through unknown sources. The national parties and regional parties received ₹427 crore and ₹264 crore worth of funds, respectively, from unknown sources. A split:

Share of revenue

 The graph shows the donations from unknown sources, donations from known sources and income from other known sources such as the sale of assets, and membership fees as a share of total revenue in FY21. Almost half the total income of the regional parties was from unknown sources in FY21

National parties

In FY21, the Congress secured ₹178.8 crore as income from unknown sources, the highest among all national parties, followed by the BJP at around ₹100 crore. The BSP did not declare income from any source

Regional parties

Among those regional parties which had declared their income with the Election Commission of India, the YSR-Congress received ₹96.3 crore from unknown sources, the highest, followed by the DMK at the second position

The ADR said that at least 27 regional political parties did not list their audit and contribution reports on the Election Commission of India’s website, and so were not included in the analysis