The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has continued its tradition of being the first among national parties to file its latest Contribution Report with the Election Commission of India. And, yet again, Mayawati’s party has declared that it did not receive any funds in excess of Rs 20,000 from individual donors and entities in the year 2022-23.
The 20,000-figure is important because, for registered political parties to be eligible for exemption from income tax, they are required to maintain and share records of each contribution of more than Rs 20,000, including name and address of the contributor/donor unless the contribution is made by electoral bond.
The BSP continues to declare that it has no such record as all the contributions it gets are under Rs 20,000 each. It claims that it gets funds only from people with small earnings.
The party submitted its contribution report on June 27. It was signed by the party’s national treasurer Sridhar. The ECI put the report in public domain on Friday.
In the section that asks for the details of the contributions that were more than Rs 20,000 during 2022-23, the BSP reports says “nil”.
All registered political parties have to file three financial reports with the ECI each year. Under the Representation of the People Act and I-T rules, parties have to prepare a report about the contribution in excess of Rs 20,000 received by them from any person or other entities in a financial year.
Among the national parties, it is the BSP that files its reports first almost every year. Till last year, there were eight national parties in India – BJP, Congress, BSP, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M), All India Trinamool Congress (AITC/TMC), and National People’s Party (NPP).
However, the TMC, CPI and NCP have been removed from this list as they no longer meet the criteria to be “national”, while the Aam Aadmi Party was added after its performance in Punjab and Gujarat. So now, the number is six.
In 2022, when the parties declared their contribution in excess of Rs 20,000 for 2021-22, the BJP was at the top with the highest amount of donation – Rs 614.52 crore – received thus. The amount received by the BJP is nearly four times that collected by the remaining parties.
Further, the total contribution in excess of Rs 20,000 from individual donors and entities in the financial year 2021-22 by seven national parties, except CPI, was Rs 778.73 crore. Out of this, collectively BJP and Congress were responsible for over 90 percent of the share.
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