AIADMK received Rs 52.17 Cr donation, Progressive trust, ITC are top funders
Chief Minister Edappadi Karuppa Palaniswami led All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) party in Tamil Nadu
By Newsmeter Network Published on 4 Nov 2020 11:18 AM GMT
Chennai: Chief Minister Edappadi Karuppa Palaniswami led All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) party in Tamil Nadu has received a whopping Rs 52.17 Crore as a donation for the financial year ending March 2020.
One of India's leading electoral trust Progressive Electoral and ITC Limited company are two top funders. The AIADMK has received Rs 46.77 Crore from the Mumbai based trust while Rs 5. 38 Crore from ITC, respectively in the financial year 2019-2020. It is pertinent to note that a high chunk of money has been channelled through the trust. Both the funders issued cheques to AIADMK in the month ending April 2019.
NewsMeter has accessed the contribution report of AIADMK party submitted to the election commission of India. A comparison of the previous year's report revealed that that party received zero (0) contribution in 2018-2019 while Rs 52.17 in the following year.
What is Electoral trust?
An Electoral Trust is a scheme created to channel funding to a political party. Trust can receive money from corporates, individuals, and others. Of which they disburse 95 per cent of funds to the parties.
According to the Central Board of Direct Taxes, since the inception of the scheme, there are 21 Electoral Trusts in India. Of which only 15 have submitted their contributions reports to the Election Commission of
Association for Democratic reforms, an election watch body analyzed the funds received by Electoral Trusts based on their contribution reports submitted to the ECI for the FY 2018-19. The report concluded that the top 10 donors have contributed Rs 161.42 cr to Electoral Trusts, which forms 64% of the total donations received by the Trusts.
The 5 Electoral Trusts received a total of Rs 252.0065 cr from corporates and individuals and distributed Rs 251.554 cr (99.82%) to various political parties. The Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) received a large share of the funds (Rs 100 crore) followed by the Indian National Congress (INC) Rs 43 crore.
