The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP, has become the top recipient of political donations in 2024–2025, collecting more than Rs 6,000 crore. This is 12 times more than what its major rival, the Indian National Congress, received, which stood at Rs 517 crore.
Apart from large donations routed through electoral trusts, companies and individuals also directly contributed substantial sums to the BJP. These include Tata Sons’ Rs 757 crore through electoral trusts, Rungta Sons’ Rs 95 crore, Derive Investments’ Rs 53 crore, and Rs 28 crore from Kaynes Technology and its chairperson.
A total of nine Electoral Trusts have contributed Rs 3811 crore to political parties of which BJP received 82% (Rs 3157 crore).
Despite the Supreme Court striking down the electoral bond scheme last year, the BJP continued to benefit from large donations routed through electoral trusts, which act as intermediaries for companies and individuals. The court had held the electoral bond scheme unconstitutional, citing donor anonymity and the facilitation of unlimited political funding. However, the ruling appears to have had little immediate impact, with electoral trusts accounting for the bulk of political donations.
Big donations to the BJP
Half of the money BJP received in 2024-2025 came from direct donations.
Kolkata-based mining company Rungta Sons Private Limited, which contributed Rs 95 crore to BJP, was in news recently for acquiring complete ownership of SMC Power Generation Limited, a public limited company.
Mysore-based firm Kaynes Technology and its founder Ramesh Kunhikannan have together contributed Rs 28 crore to BJP. Keynes Semicon, a subsidiary of Kaynes Technology specializing in outsourced semiconductor assembly, testing, and packaging, initially broke ground for a major facility in Kongarakalan near Hyderabad, but in September 2024 the project was relocated to Sanand, Gujarat. This is because the Union government approved a subsidy of Rs 1,653.5 crore, covering 50% of the total project cost of approximately Rs 3,307 crore and the Gujarat government added subsidies over Rs 700 cr.
Vedanta Limited (Rs 67 crore), Modern Road Makers Pvt Ltd (Rs 52 crore) and Safal Goyal Realty LLP (Rs 45 crore) are some of the firms which directly contributed to the BJP.
Modern Road Makers Pvt Ltd, the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) arm of the infrastructure company IRB Group, donated Rs 52.15 crore to BJP. IRB is a Mumbai-based infrastructure company headed by Virendra Mhaiskar. In 2015, the CBI raided its premises in Pune and Mumbai after a complaint of land grabbing, forgery and cheating. Between 2014 and 2023, IRB and its subsidiaries had donated at least 84 crore to the BJP.
Pharma companies also donated to the BJP. Three of them made direct donations.
Pune-based Emcure Pharmaceuticals Ltd donated Rs 15 crore. The company opened a research and development (R&D) centre near Ahmedabad earlier this year, inaugurated by Gujarat Health Minister Rushikesh Patel.
While Natco Pharma donated Rs 16.5 crore, vaccine major Serum Institute of India donated Rs 100 crore directly to the BJP.
Other pharma companies donated to Prudent trust, which gave most of its contributions to BJP.
These include Dr Reddy's Laboratories (Rs 35 crore), Lupin (Rs 25 crore), Hetero Labs and related companies (Rs 45 crore), Aurobindo Pharma and linked companies (Rs 35 crore), Torrent Pharmaceuticals Ltd (Rs 33.5 crore), and Divi’s Laboratories (Rs 15 crore).
The Hero group made substantial political donations to the BJP through multiple group entities, even as they have been under the radar of enforcement agencies including the ED, IT department and the MCA. Hero Enterprises Partner Ventures donated a total of Rs 30 crore, spread across three tranches of Rs 15 crore, Rs 5 crore and Rs 10 crore. Global Ivy Ventures LLP contributed Rs 35 crore in two instalments of Rs 10 crore and Rs 25 crore. Hero Fincorp Limited donated Rs 8.5 crore, while Ivy Icon Solution made a contribution of Rs 5 crore.
Prudent leads in donations from Trusts
Among the trusts, Prudent Electoral Trust made a total contribution of Rs 2668 crore to all political parties in 2024-25 and curiously 81 % of this went to the BJP. The total political donations through Prudent to BJP alone was Rs 2180 crore. The next highest recipient - Congress party - has got less than 10 %, which is Rs 216.33 crore. Prudent, formerly Satya, belongs to Bharti Group.
Prudent received Rs 500 crore from Elevated Avenue Realty LLP, a subsidiary of L&T. Megha Engineering and Infrastructure (MEIL) contributed Rs 175 crore to Prudent, while its Managing Director PV Krishna Reddy donated Rs 145 crore, taking the total to Rs 320 crore. Last year, MEIL had emerged as the top donor of electoral bonds to the BJP, with the figure touching Rs 584 crore.
Jindal Group (Rs 167 crore), Tiger Associates (Rs 142 crore), which is an area distributor in West Bengal for Nagaland, Sikkim and Punjab State Lotteries, automotive manufacturer Ashok Leyland Limited (Rs 100 crore) and Real estate developer DLF LTD (Rs 100 crore) are some of the top contributors of Prudent.
The Torrent Group of companies gave Rs 98.5 crore to Prudent through Torrent Power (Rs 65 crore) and Torrent Pharma (Rs 33.5 crore). Torrent Group, whose chairman emeritus Sudhir Mehta is close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has also been a big BJP donor through electoral bonds and party donations. Torrent runs many power projects in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and other states. The company recently signed a 10-year agreement with Japan's largest power generation company JERA to supply liquified natural gas.
Prudent made the contributions to BJP mostly in April-May, coinciding with the 2024 General Election. A total of Rs 1798 crore was sent to the BJP during these two months. Though it cannot be directly linked to any political parties, several companies gave contributions to Prudent during the time of election. MEIL's contribution of Rs 125 crore was on April 18, 2024. InterGlobe Aviation Limited, parent company of Indigo airlines, donated Rs 40 crore on April 5, 2024. DLF’s Rs 100 crore and Elevated Avenue’s Rs 200 crore landed in Prudent accounts respectively on April 12 and March 30, 2014.
Trust funds under scanner
Apart from Prudent, Progressive Electoral Trust run by Tata Sons Limited have made a total contribution of Rs 915 crore to political parties from funds pooled in from various companies of the Tata Group.
Of this, Progressive ET donated Rs 757.6 crore (83% of its total pool) to BJP, while Congress received just Rs 77 crore. Tata Group's donation came under scanner following a report by the Scroll which said the contribution was made weeks after the Union Cabinet cleared approval for two semiconductor units by Tata Group. The firm received a subsidy worth Rs 44,203 crore, as per the report.
New Democratic Electoral Trust has received funds from a single donor - Mahindra Group. Of the total Rs 160 crore donated by Mahindra, Rs 150 crore went to BJP. The remaining Rs 10 crore was equally distributed to Congress and Shiv Sena (Uddhav).
Harmony ET received Rs 35.55 crore from various companies of the Pune-based Kalyani Group, an iron and steel forging company. It donated a total of Rs 35.65 crore in 2024-25, most of it (Rs 30.15 crore) to BJP.
Smaller amounts were donated to Maharashtra parties Shiv Sena (UBT) (Rs 3 crore), Nationalist Congress Party – Sharadchandra Pawar (Rs 2 crore), and Maharashtra Swarajya Party (Rs 50 lakh).
Triumph ET received Rs 25 crore from different companies with links to the Chennai-based Murugappa Group — Coromandel International, Crompton Greaves, and Cyient. It gave Rs 21 crore to BJP, and Rs 4 crore to the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).