The party received Rs 163.54 crore from 1,519 donors during the period, out of the total Rs 174.06 crore from 1,571 donors

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was the biggest recipient of corporate donations from Gujarat between 2017 and 2021, exceeding the Congress by 16 times, the Association for Democratic Reforms said in a report on Sunday.

According to the report, four political parties - BJP, Congress, AAP and SKM - received corporate donations worth Rs 174.06 crore from 1,571 donors from Gujarat between FY 2016-17 and 2020-21.

During this five-year period, the BJP was the biggest recipient of corporate donations, amounting to Rs 163.54 crore from 1,519 donors, the report said. The Congress, on the other hand, got a mere 10.46 crore during the period.

Newcomer Aam Aadmi Party received a total of just Rs 3.2 lakh in corporate donations during the five-year period, with no donations between 2017-2020.

Of the total corporate donations of Rs 4,014.58 crore received by political parties in the five-year period, 4.34 per cent or Rs 174.06 crore came from Gujarat, the report said, citing data submitted by the political parties to the Election Commission.

Overall, the total donations declared by both national and regional political parties in their annual audit reports was Rs 12,745.61 crore. Of this, Rs 10,471.04 crore was declared by 8 national parties while remaining was declared by regional parties, the report said.

Elections for 182 seats of the Gujarat Legislative Assembly will be held in two phases - on December 1 for 89 seats and December 5 for 93 seats, while the counting of votes will be taken up on December 8.