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The Tata Group donated Rs 758 crore to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) weeks after the Union government announced over Rs 44,000 crore in subsidies to two of its semiconductor units, an investigation by Scroll.in has revealed. The donations were made in April 2024, days before the general election.
Two semiconductor units of Tata Group – one each in Assam and Gujarat, both BJP-governed states – were approved by the Union Cabinet in February 2024. The Union government subsidies for these two units reportedly add up to about Rs 44,023 crore.
Soon after the Tata Group’s semiconductor units were approved by the Union Cabinet in February 2024, the business conglomerate donated the money. The investigation by Scroll reveals how this money was routed.
Congress was the second biggest recipient, and recieved an amount much lesser than what the BJP did.
BJP has been the biggest beneficiary of political funding through electoral trusts and now-suspended electoral bonds in recent years.
The Tata Group maed these donations through a political trust, Scroll has reported. An electoral trust is a trust set up by companies to facilitate donations from companies and individuals to political parties. The scheme was introduced by the UPA government in 2013.
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 which donor is funding which party.
