Hyderabad-based MEIL, Medha among top 10 political donors; contributes Rs 122 crore in FY23

Hyderabad: India's 54th richest man P.V Krishna Reddy's company Megha Engineering Engineering Infrastructures Limited (MEIL) donated Rs 87 crore to Prudent Electoral Trust in FY 2023.

The business tycoon whose wealth skyrocketed to USD 4.05 billion in 2023, according to Forbes magazine, is likely to be the biggest political funder based out of Hyderabad.

He is followed by another Hyderabad-based company Medha Servo Drives which contributed Rs 35 crore in the same year. They are among the top 10 political funders.-

The richest trust in India- Prudent received a whopping Rs 363.16 crore as political funding, of which Rs 363.15 crore has been distributed, as told to the Election Commission of India.

Interestingly, not a single donation went to the Congress party. The entire amount was distributed between the BJP, BRS, YSRCP, and AAP. BJP eats up the largest share of the funding. Of the total political funding received by Prudent Trust, Rs 75 Crore has been donated to the BRS, Rs 16 crore to YSRCP, and Rs 90 lakhs to AAP, and the rest Rs 276 crore goes into the kitty of BJP.

Prudent is a trust set up initially by Bharati Group. Many companies route money to political parties through this trust. This is another scheme besides electoral bonds to fund political parties.

NewsMeter accessed the contribution report of Prudent Electoral Trust submitted to the Election Commission of India. On the donors list, Hyderabad's MEIL is on the top with a Rs 87 Crore donation, followed by the Mittal's (ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India and its joint venture) which together donated Rs 85 crore. Next in the line is Abhinand Ventures Private Limited and Serum Institute of India, which donated Rs 50 crore each to Prudent. Then comes two Hyderabad-based companies- Medha Servo Drives with Rs 35 crore and Greenko Energy Projects- with Rs 20 crore.

Professor Jagdeep S Chokkar, Co-founder of the Association for Democratic Reforms explained: "Any corporation can set up an electoral trust which is eligible to receive electoral donations from anybody. Any company can make donations to the trust. 95 percent of the money must be disbursed to political parties during that year. Electoral bonds and Trust are two schemes, where corporates donate to political parties. At least the donor is known in the case of a trust, unlike the bonds. We need to keep in mind that the total information on political funding is limited, and the exchange of money is massive off paper. The bonds and trust only give us a minuscule view of the funding. Why has the name of Reliance been seen in any scheme? There is a nexus between the corporates and the parties.”