A Silvasa-based trust and a controversial Gujarat business house are among the biggest contributors to the BJP election fund.
A Silvasa-based trust and a controversial Gujarat business house are among the biggest contributors to the BJP election fund. These and several other obscure entities helped the right-wing party raise Rs52.41 crore from 2003-07.
Unlike the Congress, which has the financial support of the Tatas and Birlas, the BJP’s interests are sustained largely (as reflected in the party affidavits to the election commission) by Silvasa’s Public and Political Awareness Trust. The trust’s donations – Rs 9.5 crore – are only to the BJP. Probe revealed the trust gets most of its money from Anil Agarwal’s Sterlite group.
A study of the group’s financial statements revealed it was heavily funding the trust. In 2000, 51% of the public sector Balco was sold to Sterlite by the then NDA government, raising serious questions.
On record, Sterlite has given about Rs50 lakh to the BJP and another Rs1 crore to the Congress, taking its total donations to Rs11 crore.
The BJP’s list of donors also includes the Gujarat-based Adani group, which donated Rs4 crore to the party from 2003-07. Adani is one of the most controversial business empires. It is under the scanner of almost all investigation agencies, including the directorate of revenue intelligence, enforcement directorate, customs and income tax.
The Videocon group has contributed Rs3.5 crore to the party and the Tatas and Birlas together over Rs5.63 crore. The relatively-small donors on the BJP list include Akik Education Centre, Baldev Park and Shahdara, but enquiries revealed no education centre at the given address, raising serious questions over the source of the Rs1.5 crore received in the name of the centre.
The Nima Specific Family Trust based in Ahmedabad has donated Rs1 crore to the BJP. In most cases, the party has not disclosed complete addresses of donors to the election commission.
The BJP’s supporters also include Vijay Mallya’s Shaw Wallace group, GMR group, which have bagged major airport development contracts across the country, and the Bajaj group. All of them have donated Rs1 crore each.
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