Afroz Alam Sahil, BeyondHeadlines
New Delhi. In Year 2011 the massive support to anti-corruption movement proved that People of India know about the corruption of the political class.
Now, we can no longer pretend that there is no corruption, or that it exists only in the lower echelons of government. The truth is the higher you climb the political ladder the more corruption you find.
Today we will give you facts that prove how big corporates create bogus trusts to bribe political class.
Let us begin with the Indian National Congress. The Party received 44.55 crores as donations from various corporate electoral trusts to finance 2009 general Elections.
General Electoral Trust, A trust created by Aditya Birla Group to donate to political parties, alone donated 13.95 Crores while Bharti Electoral Trust (Bharti Airtel Group) donated 11 Crores.
Congress received 10 cores from Corporate Electoral Trust, 5.64 Crore from Electoral Trust, 2 Crores from Harmony Electoral Trust and 2 Crores from Satya Electoral Trust.
Electoral Trust is run by Tata Group while no information is available about Corporate Electoral trust, Harmony Electoral Trust and Satya Electoral Trust.
Interestingly General Electoral Trust of Aditya Birla Group has donated 35.91 Crores to Congress Party since 2003-04. In Election Year 2004-05 the trust donated 11.21Crores to the party.
In Comparison the General Electoral Trust donated 29.04 crores to BJP since 2003-04 with 5.51 crores in election year 2004-05 and 11.6 crores in election year 2009-10.
Apart from donating to Ruling Congress and Main opposition Party BJP the General Electoral Trust has also contributed to other parties but in comparatively low amounts.
The Trust donated 5 Crores to Biju Janata Dal, 2 Crores to Rashtriya Janata Dal, 2 crores to Shivsena and 50 Lakhs to Samajwadi Party.
From 2003-04 the Birla’s Trust has donated 74.45 crores to various political parties. But Birla’s are not alone in donating to political parties. Tata Group has also created a trust to donate to political parties in name of strengthening democracy. But the fact is that these trusts only donate to big political parties.
The Electoral Trust of Tata Group donated to Congress only in Election years. In 2005-06 the trust contributed 4.32 crores and in 2009-10 5.64 crores to Indian National
Congress. In election year 2009-10 the Tata’s trust donated 4.14 crores to BJP, 97 lakhs to Samajwadi Party, 27 lakhs to DMK, 30 lakhs to JDU and 36 lakhs to RJD.
The trust has also donated to SP and DMK in year 2004-05 with 60 lakhs and 48 lakhs to each respectively.
Bharti Electoral Trust of the Bharti Airtel Group entered the corporate donation market in year 2008-9 and has so far donated almost 20 crore rupees to various political parties including 11 crores to Congress, 7 crores to BJP, 1 crore to RJD, 1 Crore to JDU, 1 crore to TDP, 50 Lakhs to LJP and 30 Lakhs to Shiromani Akali Dal.
The Corporate Electoral Trust, about which no information can be found on internet has also donated 1 crore to Congress and 50 lakhs to BJP. The other two bogus trusts namely Harmony Electoral Trust and Satya Electoral Trust have also donated 2 crore each to Indian National Congress.
Surprisingly no Electoral Trust has donated to any political party in year 2010-11.
BSP of Mayawati and AITMC of Mamta Banerjee has not received any funds from any corporate trust.
(This report is eighth in series of Political Parties and their funding, soon we will share information about funding of Other Parties)
First Story: http://beyondheadlines.in/2011/12/didi-and-behenji-ignore-rules-to-hide-maya/
Second Story: http://beyondheadlines.in/2012/01/most-parties-shy-away-from-sharing-funding-details/
Third Story: http://beyondheadlines.in/2012/01/gujarat-government-donated-to-modi%e2%80%99s-bjp/
Fourth Story: http://beyondheadlines.in/2012/01/canadian-funding-for-cpi/
Fifth Story: http://beyondheadlines.in/2012/01/vegetable-companies-fund-bjp-to-cry-against-fdi/
Sixth Story: http://beyondheadlines.in/2012/01/congress-lost-to-bjp-in-collecting-funds/
Seventh Story: http://beyondheadlines.in/2012/01/queen-elizabeth-donated-to-indian-national-congress/