Political parties are mandated to submit details of donors who contribute over Rs 20,000 in a financial year, to the Election Commission of India

National political parties submitted incorrect, incomplete or no PAN details for more than 20 percent of the donations they received between financial years 2012-13 and 2017-18, according to an analysis by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR).

The ADR report has analysed declarations made by national political parties.

These parties include the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Indian National Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC).

Between FY13 and FY18, these parties together received around Rs 2,140 crore in donations (of above Rs 20,000). Of the total donations received by six national parties (BSP excluded) during this timeframe, total donations with undeclared, incomplete or incorrect PAN details amount to Rs 453.61 crore or 21.1 percent. BSP declared no donations above Rs 20,000.

Donations of over Rs 438 crore were not attributed to any PAN details. Around Rs 14.6 crore were received from donations with incorrect or incomplete PAN details.

According to ADR’s analysis, BJP did not mention PAN details for Rs 281.5 crore. It also had incomplete or incorrect details for contributions worth Rs 8.1 crore. These numbers are the highest among all of the seven parties scrutinised by ADR.

Congress came in second, not providing PAN details for contributions worth Rs 150.5 crore. It also had incomplete or incorrect PAN details for Rs 5.6 crore in donations.

Spike during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls

National political parties declared the highest amount of donations without PAN details worth Rs 275.7 crore and the highest amount of donations with incomplete, incorrect or with missing PAN details of Rs 6.887 crore in FY15 – when the 2014 Lok Sabha election was held.

Image: Discrepancies in contribution reports of national political parties (FY13 to FY18)

Out of these Rs 275.7 crore, about Rs 203.7 crore went to the BJP. Around Rs 70 crore when to the Congress.

Political parties are mandated to submit details of donors who contribute over Rs 20,000 in a financial year, to the Election Commission of India (EC). These details include the name, address, PAN, mode of payment and the amount donated by every donor.

Earlier, it was reported that corporates donated Rs 985.1 crore to national political parties in FY17 and FY18. Out of this, donations amounting to Rs 120.1 crore did not have address details in the contribution forms.

About 76 corporate donors who did not have PAN details in the form donated Rs 2.5 crore to national parties in those two financial years.

About 98 percent of the corporate donations without PAN and address details worth Rs 2.5 crore, went to the BJP.