A Reuters review of public records reveals that the headquarters of an electoral trust, which is the largest known donor to India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is housed behind the doors of a small, unremarkable office in the center of New Delhi. The trust is managed by just two men. Since its founding in 2013, the Prudent Electoral Trust has raised $272 million, with approximately 75% of that amount going to the party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. According to the records, the trust gave ten times as much money to the BJP than it did to the Congress party, the opposition party, $20.6 million.

Electoral trusts were instituted by the previous Congress-led government in 2013 to facilitate tax-exempt party contributions. It claimed that by lowering cash contributions—which are more difficult to track down—the mechanism would increase transparency in campaign financing. However, some election experts claim that the trusts add to the opaqueness surrounding the funding of political parties in India, where polls indicate that Modi will win a rare third term in office in this year’s general election, which is expected to be called in the coming weeks. Reuters tracked donations from some of the biggest Indian companies between 2018 and 2023 using public records, even though Prudent does not reveal the distribution of individual corporate donors’ contributions. According to a Reuters analysis, eight of the largest business groups in India gave at least $50 million to the trust between 2019 and 2023. The trust then wrote checks to the BJP for the equivalent amounts.

Modi government is cooperating with the big companies for election 

According to a Reuters analysis, eight of the largest business groups in India gave at least $50 million to the trust between 2019 and 2023. The trust then wrote checks to the BJP for the equivalent amounts. Four businesses, whose transactions were discovered by Reuters, are the energy giant Essar, the telecom Bharti Airtel, the infrastructure developer GMR, and the steel giant ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel. None of these businesses have contributed money directly to the party and are not listed among its donors. In response to queries from Reuters, GMR and Bharti Airtel stated that Prudent chooses how their donations are allocated. GMR spokesman: Prudent makes decisions “in accordance with their internal guidelines, which we are unaware of.” The business “does not like to align with any political party,” he continued. The company that founded Prudent, Bharti Airtel, stated that it had “no influence on the decisions, directions and mode of disbursal of funds.” In 2014, it turned over management of the service to independent auditors Mukul Goyal and Venkatachalam Ganesh. Emails, texts, and calls to the other groups’ spokespeople went unanswered. Email and postal queries were not answered by Goyal or Ganesh. During a brief phone conversation, Goyal responded, “That is something we do not discuss,” when asked about Prudent’s operation. The largest of India’s eighteen electoral trusts, Prudent, is compelled by law to disclose the total sums it has given to each party as well as the sums it has received from each donor.

However, out of the four biggest electoral trusts in India, it is the only one that takes contributions from multiple corporate groups. Trusts “provide one layer of separation between firms and parties,” according to Milan Vaishnav, a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think-tank expert on Indian campaign finance. Vaishnav is based in Washington. Vaishnav continued, “Most political donations in India are undisclosed, and political finance is generally viewed as murky in India.” In its most recent public statement, the BJP stated in March 2023 that the total value of its political war chest—which included cash reserves and assets—was 70.4 billion rupees ($850 million). GMR spokesman: Prudent makes decisions “by their internal guidelines, which we are unaware of.” The business “does not like to align with any political party,” he continued. The company that founded Prudent, Bharti Airtel, stated that it had “no influence on the decisions, directions, and mode of disbursal of funds.” In 2014, it turned over management of the service to independent auditors Mukul Goyal and Venkatachalam Ganesh. Emails, texts, and calls to the other groups’ spokespeople went unanswered. Email and postal queries were not answered by Goyal or Ganesh. During a brief phone conversation, Goyal responded, “That is something we do not discuss,” when asked about Prudent’s operation.

Modi has the support of business people of the country 

The largest of India’s eighteen electoral trusts, Prudent, is compelled by law to disclose the total sums it has given to each party as well as the sums it has received from each donor. However, out of the four biggest electoral trusts in India, it is the only one that takes contributions from multiple corporate groups. Trusts “provide one layer of separation between firms and parties,” according to Milan Vaishnav, a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think-tank expert on Indian campaign finance. Vaishnav is based in Washington. Vaishnav continued, “Most political donations in India are undisclosed, and political finance is generally viewed as murky in India.” In its most recent public statement, the BJP stated in March 2023 that the total value of its political war chest—which included cash reserves and assets—was 70.4 billion rupees ($850 million). It now has a massive financial advantage over Congress, which was funding itself with 7.75 billion rupees. Requests for comment for this story were made repeatedly, but BJP spokespeople did not reply. According to the documents, Prudent was also the Congress party’s most well-known donor during the ten years leading up to March 2023.

Businessmen are very happy with Modi’s policy

A trust may set aside up to 300,000 rupees for annual operating costs. Any money left over must be spent in the same fiscal year that it was received. Reuters analyzed contribution reports that Prudent submitted to the electoral authorities and found that the eight corporate groups contributed a total of 18 large sums to the trust between 2019 and 2022. Prudent gave the BJP checks for the same amounts in a matter of days. Before the 18 contributions—which do not represent the total amount of money the groups gave Prudent—the trust lacked the money necessary to pay the BJP. Prudent received donations from several companies connected to the ArcelorMittal group, which is led by billionaire L.N. Mittal.

ArcelorMittal Design and Engineering Centre Private Limited, for example, sent Prudent a check for 500 million rupees ($6.03 million) on July 12, 2021. The following day, Prudent sent BJP a check for the same amount. Additionally, on November 1, 2021, ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India gave Prudent 200 million rupees, and on November 16, 2022, 500 million rupees. BJP received the corresponding amounts on November 5, 2021, and November 17, 2022. Requests for comment from an ArcelorMittal spokesperson went unanswered. Meanwhile, on January 13, 2022, Bharti Airtel gave 250 million rupees to Prudent, and on March 25, 2021, it gave 150 million rupees. Cheques for those amounts were issued by the trust to BJP on January 14, 2023, and March 25, 2021.