The Bharatiya Janata Party received 72.17%, or Rs 351.50 crore, of the total donations received by all political parties through electoral trusts in 2021-’22, a report released by election reforms group Association for Democratic Reforms said on Thursday.

Electoral trusts are non-profit companies formed by various private corporations for political funding. In 2021-’22, political parties received 487.09 crore in donations made by electoral trusts.

These trusts distributed Rs 487.06 crore to various political parties in this period, the report said.

Notably, the Congress received less money through donations from electoral trusts in the last financial year than the Bharat Rashtra Samithi, the Samajwadi Party, the Aam Aadmi Party and the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party, the report showed.

The Bharat Rashtra Samithi received Rs 40 crore, the Samajwadi Party Rs 27 crore, the Aam Aadmi Party Rs 21.12 crore, the YSR Congress Rs 20 crore and the Congress Rs 18.43 crore.

The Shiromani Akali Dal received Rs 7 crore, the Punjab Lok Congress Party Rs 1 crore and the Goa Forward Party and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Rs 50 lakh each, according to the Association for Democratic Reforms.

The BJP has been garnering the highest donations from electoral trusts for five consecutive years now. In 2017-’18, the party received Rs 167.8 crore, or 86.59% of the total donations, while in 2018-’19 the party accumulated Rs 100.25 crore, which accounted for nearly 40% of the contributions.

The saffron party got Rs 276.45 crore, or 76.17% of the total donations, in 2019-2020, and got Rs 212.05 crore, or 82.05%, from this source in 2020-21.

The organisation said that Arcelor Mittal Nippon Steel India Limited contributed the highest amount (Rs 70 crore) to electoral trusts, followed by Arcelor Mittal Design and Engineering Centre Private Limited (Rs 60 crore) and Bharti Airtel Limited (Rs 51 crore).

Further, 40 individuals contributed Rs 11.28 crore to electoral trusts in 2021-’22.