New Delhi: Donations of over Rs. 20,000 received by the Congress party have fallen by 75% to Rs. 131 crore in the 2025-26 financial year; this is the steepest decline in the past decade.
In the previous 2024-25 financial year, donations above Rs. 20,000 stood at Rs. 517.39 crore, but in 2025-26 they have dropped to Rs. 130.69 crore. The main reason for this overall decline is an 88% fall in donations from the 'Prudent Electoral Trust'.
Based on the documents submitted by the Congress party to the Election Commission, the Congress party received Rs. 130.69 crore in donations above Rs. 20,000 in the 2025-26 financial year. PTI reported that this is about 75 percent lower than the previous financial year, and that this is the steepest decline in such donations over the past decade.
In the 2024-25 financial year, when the Lok Sabha election was held, the Congress party received Rs. 517.39 crore through donations above Rs. 20,000. In the previous year, 2023-24, this amount was Rs. 281.48 crore. If the amounts received through electoral bonds in previous years are also taken into account, the funds received by the Congress party in the 2025-26 financial year are the lowest since 2020-21. In 2024-25, the Congress party received Rs. 350.12 crore through coupons alone.
Compared with donations over the past 12 financial years, such a steep decline had occurred before only in the 2015-16 financial year; at that time, it had fallen by about 86% from the previous year’s Rs. 141.46 crore.
The main reason for this decline is the sharp reduction in donations from the 'Prudent Electoral Trust'. The donation this trust gave to the Congress party in the 2024-25 financial year was Rs. 216.34 crore, but it has fallen to Rs. 25 crore in the 2025-26 financial year. This is a decline of about 88%.
Among other major donors, Star Cement has contributed Rs. 5 crore, Sajjan Bajanka Rs. 4 crore, and Prem Kumar Bajanka Rs. 2 crore.
Although this decline is significant when viewed year by year, the amount of donations disclosed by the Congress party is still higher than in some previous years. The party 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.
Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party received a total of Rs. 6,074.02 crore in the 2024-25 financial year through donations of more than Rs. 20,000 each. This is about 12 times more than the donations received by the Congress party during the same period. Details for the BJP's donation report for the 2025-26 financial year are not yet available, as the Election Commission has not yet made it public.
Over the past 12 financial years, the BJP has received more funding than the Congress party every year.
