BJP pockets more donations than Congress in Himachal

The Bharatiya Janata Party has received more donations compared to the Congress in Himachal Pradesh in the last seven years, a study has found.

According to the Association for Democratic Reforms, while the BJP received over Rs 82,000 lakh between 2004-05 and 2010-11, the Congress earned over Rs 27,250 lakh in donations.

The BJP has declared that 82.43 per cent of its income has come from donations received between 2004-05 and 2010-11 while the Congress has only 13.57 per cent of its total income derived from donations.

The study notes that the General Electoral Trust has been a major donor for the Congress (Rs 3,641 lakh) and the BJP (Rs 2,607 lakh) from 2003 to 2011.

Other major donors include Torrent Power, which donated Rs 1,415 lakh to the Congress and Rs 1,300 lakh to BJP.

In spite of a total income of Rs 2,00,871.74 lakh between FY 2004-05 and 2010-11, the Congress has declared that only 8.85% of its total income is covered by donations above Rs 20,000.

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The BJP, with a total income of Rs 99,476.67 lakh, has only 19.46 per cent coming from donations above Rs 20,000 collected during the same period.

Bahujan Samaj Party declared a total income of Rs 30,731 lakh from donations (data for 2006-07 is awaited), followed by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (Rs 17,546.15 lakh) and CPI (Rs 548.96 lakh) between 2004-05 and 2010-11.

The BSP has declared that it has not received any donation above Rs 20,000 from a single donor in 7 years between 2004-05 and 2010-11. It should be noted that the total donations of Rs 30,731 lakh was declared by the party in its Income Tax Returns statement.

Southern Engineering Works has been a major contributor to the CPM (Rs 35 lakh by SEW and Rs 25 lakh by SEW Infrastructure) followed by Rs 10 lakh donated by Nuziveedu Seeds Private Limited.  

Individual collections by CPI members holds the top position in the donor table with A B Bardhan collecting Rs 65 lakh followed by Aziz Pasha with Rs 20 lakh and Rs 21.45 collected by D Raja.

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Other observations

* In Himachal Pradesh, 27 out of 68 MLAs (40 per cent) have declared criminal cases against them. Five out of these have declared serious criminal cases.

* A total of 20 out of 68 (29 per cent) MLAs in the Himachal Pradesh assembly are crorepatis.

* Only 5 (7 per cent) MLAs are women while rest 63 (93 per cent) are men MLAs.

* As per the information received under the RTI Act 2005, the total number of actual sittings in the state assembly from 2007-2012 was 128 out of a total of 140 days that the assembly had planned to sit. The average number of sittings per year in the assembly is 32.

* The assembly has the maximum number of sittings per year along with Goa, in comparison to Manipur (24) and Uttar Pradesh (22).  The number of sittings per year in these assemblies is way below the number of Lok Sabha sittings in a year (70).

* A total of 107 bills were passed during the entire term of the assembly.

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