Daily Briefing | Who donated to which political party?

In contrast, donations to the Congress party halved in 2024-25. Electoral trusts comprised 60 per cent of overall donations, while other big donors included: ITC Infotech India Limited (Rs 11.50 crore), Hindustan Zinc Limited (Rs 10 crore), and Sandur Manganese & Iron Ore Ltd (Rs 9.75 crore). Among individuals, senior party leader P Chidambaram donated Rs 3 crore.

Fine print: Electoral trusts became a preferred source of political donation for companies in 2024-25 after the electoral bonds scheme was junked. It allows individuals and companies to donate to a trust, which then disburses the funds to the party. The process here is transparent, unlike in EBs. Prudent Electoral Trust emerged as the largest source of funds for parties. Data shows that Elevated Avenue Realty, a real estate entity linked to the L&T Group, was the single largest contributor to the trust.

Meanwhile, the Tata Group was the largest political donor, sending funds to the Progressive Electoral Trust, which further distributed this to the BJP (Rs 758 crore), Congress (Rs 77 crore) and other parties. Other big donors include Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Ltd (MEIL), PV Krishna Reddy, OP Jindal group of companies and more.

Also read: Who funded BJP allies TDP in Andhra Pradesh and JD(U) in then-poll-bound Bihar?

Samajwadi Party doubles its corpus. Electoral trusts and lottery firms top TMC donors’ list.

🎧 For more on political funding, tune in to today’s ‘3 Things’ podcast episode.

On that note, let’s get to the rest of the edition.

⚡ Only in Express

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, BJP’s state president in Kerala, handed the party its first-ever local body election win in Thiruvananthapuram — a crucial victory ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections. He is also the BJP’s voice in entrepreneurship and critical areas such as AI and semiconductors. Chandrasekhar talks about the challenges of being a BJP politician in Kerala, why the state fails to attract chip-making investments, and how political discourse in the state is changing in the latest Idea Exchange session.

📰 From the Front Page

Halt: Indian visa operations have been suspended in Chittagong, Bangladesh’s second-largest city, after a security incident at the Assistant High Commission of India (AHCI). This comes in the wake of the unrest across the country after the death of Sharif Osman Hadi, the student leader behind the July uprising that saw the ouster of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

Sweep: The BJP emerged as the single largest party in the elections to 288 municipal councils and nagar panchayats in Maharashtra. The party won 117 local bodies, far ahead of its Mahayuti allies Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena (53) and Ajit Pawar’s NCP (47). Together, the ruling alliance swept 207 local bodies, with the Opposition restricted to just 44 seats. The victory will likely spur the BJP’s momentum ahead of the high-stakes BMC elections on January 15.

SOS: Sahil Mohamed Hussein Majothi, a 23-year-old from Gujarat’s Morbi, went to Russia in January 2024 to study Russian language and culture, when he was allegedly trapped in a criminal case and sentenced to jail. He was then made to fight for the Russian side on the battlefield, where he was captured by Ukrainian authorities. Now in captivity, Majothi has appealed for help from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to secure his release.

📌 Must Read

Scammed: A 78-year-old businessman received a WhatsApp message in July 2024, asking him to join a share-trading group. Hesitant at first, but with a desire for “good returns,” the businessman gave in. Soon, he was investing in a company’s IPO through an app. The dashboard showed him making 30% profits. But when he tried to book them, he was shown different errors. Eventually, he was locked out of the app, and the number that had texted him on WhatsApp was unreachable. He had been scammed. His money, Rs 18.80 crore, was gone. All of it. This is the second-largest fraud to have been reported in Delhi. Read all about it.

Drugs and data: When a company develops a new drug in India, it must submit clinical trial data on its safety and efficacy to the regulator. The regulator may use this data to approve another company’s generic drug on the basis of bioequivalence studies, which are less resource-intensive than clinical trials and can prove that the generic version works just as well as the innovator. However, the government is now considering bringing a clause that will grant innovator firms exclusive rights over clinical trial data. We explain how this could change the pharma industry.

⏳ And Finally…

Train tickets are set to get costlier from December 26! Six months after its last hike, the Ministry of Railways has announced that it will increase the fare for air-conditioned, sleeper, second and general classes. For instance, AC and sleeper classes will have to pay two paisa more per km. This means that if a passenger travels from New Delhi to Prayagraj (650 km), the price of AC and sleeper-class tickets will increase by Rs 13. The Railways are expected to earn Rs 600 crore more from the fare revision.

That’s all for today, folks! Until tomorrow,
Sonal Gupta

Business As Usual by EP Unny