NEW DELHI: The Prudent Electoral Trust has once again disbursed the biggest chunk of corporate donations to political parties, a total of Rs 182.3 crore during the financial year 2018-19. The biggest beneficiary was BJP, receiving contributions of Rs 67.25 crore, followed by Congress with Rs 39 crore, as per a report filed by Prudent for the last fiscal.

In 2017-19, Prudent had contributed a total sum of around Rs 169 crore to political parties, of which around 85% (Rs 144 crore) had gone to BJP alone. Interestingly, it disbursed Rs 39 crore to Congress in 2018-19, up from Rs 10 crore in 2017-18.

The freshly uploaded reports on the Election Commission website show four electoral trusts together disbursed around Rs 249 crore in 2018-19, of which Rs 97.75 crore went to BJP. Apart from contributions worth Rs 182.3 crore disbursed by Prudent Electoral Trust, papers filed by other trusts show Rs 57.25 crore corporate contributions routed via AB General Electoral Trust, Rs 6.5 crore via New Democratic Electoral Trust and Rs 3 crore via Samaj Electoral Trust. Eight other trusts have declared zero contributions to political parties in the last fiscal.

BJP received Rs 67.25 crore from Prudent, Rs 28 crore from AB General Electoral Trust to which Aditya Birla Group is the major contributor and Rs 2.5 crore from New Democratic Electoral Trust linked to Mahindra and Mahindra Group . Congress received Rs 43 crore from three electoral trusts - Rs 39 crore from Prudent, Rs 2 crore from A B General Electoral Trust and Rs 2 crore from Samaj Electoral Trust.

Prudent Electoral Trust - the big donors to which include Bharti Airtel Group, DLF, GMR group and DCM Shriram Ltd - also contributed 27 crore to YSR Congress Party, Rs 25 crore to Telugu Desam Party and Rs 2 crore to BJD, among others.

A B General Electoral Trust disbursed contributions worth Rs 57.25 crore received from corporates such as Ultratech Cement, Hindalco Industries Ltd, Grasim Industries and Essel Mining and Industries Ltd. It gave Rs 28 crore to BJP, Rs 2 crore to Congress, Rs 27 crore to BJD and Rs 25 lakh to JD(S).

New Democratic Electoral Trust disbursed Rs 2.5 crore to BJP and Rs 2 crore each to NCP and Shiv Sena. Samaj Electoral Trust gave Rs 2 crore to Congress and Rs 1 crore to Samajwadi Party.

