In 2023-24, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) was the biggest beneficiary of electoral trust (ET) funds among regional parties, receiving Rs 85 crore. The entire amount came from a single trust, Prudent ET, which in turn received at least Rs 70 crore from companies run by Bandi Parthasaradhi Reddy, a BRS MP in the Rajya Sabha and chairman of the Hyderabad-based Hetero Group of pharmaceutical companies.
TNM’s investigation into political financing through electoral bonds in 2024 had found that the same Hetero Group had donated bonds worth at least Rs 120 crore to BRS, which was in power in Telangana till December 2023. The company had bought bonds worth Rs 70 crore just before and after BRS nominated Parthasaradhi Reddy for the Rajya Sabha polls in May 2022.
A total amount of Rs 1,218 crore was donated to various political parties through ETs during 2023-24, with the BJP once again emerging as the biggest recipient (Rs 856 crore, or 70% of the total funds). Congress was the second largest beneficiary (Rs 157 crore) of ET funds. The other recipients are all parties from the Telugu states and Tamil Nadu. BRS was the third biggest beneficiary (Rs 85 crore), followed by YSR Congress Party (Rs 72.5 crore), Telugu Desam Party (Rs 33 crore), Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (Rs 8 crore), Jana Sena Party (Rs 5 crore), and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (Rs 1 crore). These figures were revealed in the electoral trusts’ contribution reports filed with the Election Commission of India.
An ET is a trust set up by companies to facilitate donations from companies and individuals to political parties, just like the now-scrapped electoral bonds. The ET scheme was introduced by the UPA government in 2013.
While there are 19 registered ETs, in 2023-24, only five of them declared receiving any donations. Electoral trusts are required to disclose their sources of funding and the political parties the funds are distributed to. However, it’s difficult to directly connect each donor to the party they are funding.
Prudent ET, formerly known as Satya, is the richest electoral trust in India today and one of the BJP’s biggest funders since it was incorporated in 2013, before the 2014 general elections. It is promoted by one of India’s biggest conglomerates, Bharti Enterprises, which owns the telecom company Bharti Airtel, among other businesses.
Read: Not just electoral bonds, BJP is biggest beneficiary of all political finance
In 2023-24, Prudent ET donated funds worth Rs 1,075 crore to political parties. Of this, Rs 724 crore went to the BJP, Rs 156 crore to Congress, Rs 85 crore to BRS, Rs 72.5 crore to YSRCP, Rs 33 crore to TDP, and Rs 5 crore to Jana Sena.
Among its top donors are Arcelor Mittal Nippon Steel India Ltd (Rs 100 crore), DLF (Rs 100 crore), Hyderabad-based infrastructure firm Maatha Projects (Rs 75 crore), Maruti Suzuki (Rs 60 crore), and CESC Limited, part of the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group (Rs 60 crore), Apollo Tyres (Rs 50 crore), Hetero Labs (Rs 50 crore), Hetero Healthcare (Rs 5 crore), Janina Marine Properties (Rs 10 crore), and Jitvan Land (Rs 5 crore), all companies with which BRS MP Parthasaradhi Reddy is associated, donated a total of Rs 70 crore to Prudent ET.
Various companies related to GMR Group, including Laqshya Airport Media, donated Rs 25.04 crore to Prudent ET. Last year, Hyderabad-based MEIL was the biggest corporate donor to ETs, contributing Rs 87 crore to Prudent ET. This year, the company donated Rs 25 crore to the same trust.
The other ETs received much smaller donations compared to Prudent.
Triumph ET received Rs 132.5 crore, of which Rs 127.5 crore went to the BJP and Rs 5 crore to DMK.
Einzigartig ET donated only to the BJP (Rs 17.25 lakh).
Jaybharath received Rs 9 crore from Coimbatore-based textile company Lakshmi Machine Works and an associated firm, Super Sales India Ltd. It gave Rs 3 crore to DMK, Rs 1 crore to AIADMK, and Rs 5 crore to BJP.
Paribartan ET received Rs 1 crore from RCCPL Pvt Ltd, and while it refused to disclose the beneficiary, saying the amount was donated through electoral bonds, it went to Congress, as per the bonds data made public in 2024.
