New Delhi, May 31 (NIE): The Bharatiya Janata Party received Rs 532.27 crore as donation during financial year 2016-17, a 593 per cent increase as compared to the Rs 76.85 crore it declared in the previous fiscal (2015-16), a report prepared by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch (NEW) said. The Indian National Congress registered an increase of 105 per cent during the same period, it said.

The ADR, which is a non-governmental organisation that works in the area of electoral and political reforms, and the NEW, a nationwide campaign on electoral reforms, prepared the report by focusing only on donations above Rs 20,000 received by national parties during 2016-17.

According to the report, the total donations received by national political parties between the financial year (FY) 2016-17 increased by Rs 487.36 cr — an increase of 478% from Rs 102.02 crore declared during the previous fiscal.

The report states the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) declared an increase of 793%, from Rs 71 lakh in FY 2015-16 to Rs 6.34 crore in FY 2016-17.

Donations to All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) increased by 231 per cent and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) by 190 per cent during the same period. The CPI, however, registered a decrease in donations by 9 per cent.

The BSP has declared that the party did not receive any donations above Rs 20,000 during FY 2016-17, as it has been declaring for the past 11 years.

All the political parties have submitted their respective details to the Election Commission of India (ECI).

As per the report, the total donations (above Rs 20,000) declared by the national parties was Rs 589.38 crore, from 2,123 donations.

A total of Rs 532.27 crore was declared by BJP from 1,194 donations, while INC declared receiving Rs 41.90 cr from 599 donations.

The donations declared by BJP is more than nine times the aggregate declared by INC, NCP, CPI, CPM and AITC for the same period.

The ADR-NEW report stated that the total income of national parties (as per their audit reports) for FY 2016-17 was Rs 1,559.17 crore. Total income of these parties from known donors — details of donors as available from contribution report submitted by parties to the ECI — was Rs 589.38 crore, which is 37.8 per cent of the total income.