The declared donations received by Congress in the financial year 2025-26 reduced to Rs 130.69 crore. During the same period, DMK received donations of Rs 191.19 crore and Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena received donations of Rs 139.92 crore. At the same time, the data related to BJP's contribution for 2025-26 has not yet been made public by the Election Commission.
Tezzbuzz Desk – After the figures of donations received by political parties came out, a worrying picture has emerged for the Congress. According to the Form 24A report for the financial year 2025-26 submitted to the Election Commission, Congress received donations of Rs 130.69 crore during this period. This amount is about 75 percent less than the Rs 517.39 crore received in the financial year 2024-25.
Reduction in Congress donations by about Rs 386.70 crore
In the financial year 2025-26, Congress received declared donations of Rs 130.69 crore, whereas a year ago this amount was Rs 517.39 crore. That means there was a decrease of about Rs 386.70 crore in the declared donations of the party in one year. This is said to be one of the biggest annual declines in Congress donations in the last decade.
A large part of the donations received by Congress come through companies, individual donors and electoral trusts. According to the details given to the Election Commission, Congress had received Rs 281.48 crore in the financial year 2023-24. After this, during the Lok Sabha elections in 2024-25, this amount increased to Rs 517.39 crore. But in 2025-26 it reduced to Rs 130.69 crore.
DMK and Shiv Sena left Congress behind
In the financial year 2025-26, DMK of Tamil Nadu received more donations than Congress. The party received a total of Rs 191.19 crore. The largest share in this was from the election fund, in which Rs 190.24 crore came. Apart from this, Rs 37.40 lakh was received in Party Development Fund, Rs 43.40 lakh in Youth Wing Development Fund, Rs 8.40 lakh in Legal Wing and Rs 5 lakh was received from the contribution of MPs.
At the same time, Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena received donations of Rs 139.92 crore in the financial year 2025-26. Major contributors to the party include companies in the construction and infrastructure sectors. The party received a total of Rs 75 crore from three big contributions alone, which is about 53.6 percent of the total declared donations of the party.
In this way, DMK got about Rs 60.50 crore more donations than Congress and Shinde's Shiv Sena got about Rs 9.23 crore more donations.
The amount received from Prudent Electoral Trust decreased
A major reason for the decline in Congress's donations has been said to be the decrease in the amount received from the Prudent Electoral Trust. In the financial year 2024-25, this trust had given Rs 216.34 crore to Congress. At the same time, in 2025-26 this amount will come down to only Rs 25 crore. That means there was a decline of about 88 percent in this contribution.
The financial year 2024-25 was the year of Lok Sabha elections. There is usually an increase in donations received by political parties in election years. This happened in the case of Congress also. After this, the decrease in donations in the next financial year as compared to the election year is one of the reasons for the decline.
There were ups and downs in the last years also
Analyzing the data of the last 12 financial years, a big decline in Congress's donations was recorded in 2015-16 also. At that time, the party's declared donations had fallen by nearly 86 percent from last year's Rs 141.46 crore.
Apart from this, Congress had received donations of Rs 74.52 crore in 2020-21, Rs 95.46 crore in 2021-22 and Rs 79.92 crore in 2022-23.
In the financial year 2024-25, BJP had received donations of Rs 6,074.02 crore, while Congress had received Rs 517.39 crore in the same period. That means BJP had received about 12 times more donations than Congress.
However, the contribution figures of BJP for the financial year 2025-26 have not yet been made public by the Election Commission. Therefore, it is not possible at present to directly compare the donations of BJP and Congress this year.
Form 24A contains details of contributions above Rs 20,000. This does not include income from small donations, membership fees, coupon sales and interest.