Gujarat parties got Rs 1,700 Cr donations, more than 5 national parties: BBC
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New Delhi: Donations received by six political parties based in Gujarat were higher than those received by five national parties, excluding the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in the financial year 2023-24, BBC News Hindi reported on Friday.
The six parties, categorised as registered unrecognised political parties, are the Aam Janmat Party, Bharatiya National Janata Dal, Garib Kalyan Party, New India United Party, Satyawadi Rakshak Party and Swatantrata Abhivyakti Party.
According to data from the Election Commission and poll watchdog Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), the six Gujarat-based parties received a combined Rs 1,700 crore in donations during 2023-24.
In comparison, five parties that were recognised as national parties at the time, the Congress, Aam Aadmi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and National People’s Party received a combined Rs 1,480 crore in donations.
The Aam Janmat Party alone received Rs 620 crore in donations during the financial year, more than twice the Rs 281 crore received by the Congress, BBC reported.
The financial year 2023-24 included the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, which were held in April and May that year.
While the five national parties fielded 893 candidates in the 2024 general election, the six Gujarat-based parties fielded just 15 candidates.
Of the six registered unrecognised parties, four were based in Naroda, an area of Ahmedabad.
In August 2025, Dainik Bhaskar reported that 10 “anonymous parties” in Gujarat had received Rs 4,300 crore in funds between 2019-20 and 2023-24, despite rarely contesting elections.
The period covered the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections as well as the 2022 Gujarat Assembly elections. The 10 parties had fielded only 43 candidates across these polls, who collectively secured 54,069 votes, the newspaper reported.
The 10 parties included five of the six registered unrecognised parties highlighted in the BBC report on Friday.
At the time, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi urged the Election Commission to respond to the report and sought an investigation into how the parties had received thousands of crores of rupees and where the money had gone.
