Naidu sends privilege notice against Gandhi to LS speaker

Agencies
January 6, 2018

New Delhi, Jan 6: Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu today sent a privilege notice against Rahul Gandhi to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan for further action, holding that "prima facie there is an issue of privilege", sources said.

Naidu sent the notice to the Lok Sabha speaker for further action as Gandhi is a member of the Lower House.

A complaint against Gandhi is already pending before the Ethics Committee of the Lok Sabha, chaired by BJP veteran L K Advani, after the speaker forwarded the same to it.

BJP leader and Rajya Sabha member Bhupinder Yadav had given the privilege notice against Congress President Gandhi over a tweet put out by him in which he questioned the authority of the Rajya Sabha and questioned its decision.

"On examination, prima facie there is an issue of privilege," Naidu said while referring the privilege notice to the Lok Sabha speaker, the sources said.

Yadav had alleged that there is a "breach of privilege" by Gandhi as he used derogatory words against Finance Minister and Leader of the House Arun Jaitley, by twisting his name.

"Dear Mr Jaitlie - thank you for reminding India that our PM never means what he says or says what he means. #BJPLies," Gandhi said, while putting out a video of the prime minister's speech against his predecessor and Jaitleys remarks made in Rajya Sabha.

The BJP member said the Congress President had "deliberately twisted" the spelling of Jaitley's surname to 'Jaitlie', which was "highly derogatory".

The Congress president, Yadav said, has deliberately misinterpreted the proceedings of Rajya Sabha in order to "malign the government, which constitutes an affront to the dignity of the House".

He also alleged that it is a deliberate attempt at vitiating the political atmosphere of the country.

Yadav had earlier sought to know what action was being initiated against Gandhi on his privilege notice, over which Naidu told the members in the House that the same was under his examination and he would take a view on it at the earliest.

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News Network
December 22,2025

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received ₹6,654.93 crore in donations during the 2024-25 financial year — a Lok Sabha election year — registering a 68 per cent increase over the previous fiscal.

In its annual contribution report submitted to the Election Commission on December 8, two days ahead of the deadline, the BJP disclosed all donations exceeding ₹20,000. The report, now available on the Commission’s website, covers contributions received between April 1, 2024 and March 30, 2025 — a period marked by the general election and Assembly polls in Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Delhi.

The BJP, the world’s largest political party by membership, had reported donations of ₹3,967 crore in 2023-24. The latest figures represent the party’s highest donation receipts in the last five years.

Electoral trusts accounted for around 40 per cent of the BJP’s total donations. The Prudent Electoral Trust contributed ₹2,180 crore, followed by the Progressive Electoral Trust with ₹757 crore and the New Democratic Electoral Trust with ₹150 crore. Contributions from other electoral trusts together amounted to ₹3,112.5 crore. The remaining funds came from corporate donors and individuals. Electoral trusts are entities set up by companies to channel donations to political parties.

Among major corporate contributors, Serum Institute of India donated ₹100 crore, Rungta Sons Private Limited ₹95 crore, Vedanta ₹67 crore, and Macrotech Developers (formerly Lodha Developers) ₹65 crore. Three Bajaj Group companies together contributed ₹65 crore, while Derive Investments donated ₹50 crore.

Other notable donors included Malabar Gold (₹10 crore), Kalyan Jewellers (₹15.1 crore), Hero Group (₹23.65 crore), Dilip Buildcon Group (₹29 crore), ITC Limited (₹35 crore), Wave Industries (₹5.25 crore) and Zerodha’s investment firm, promoted by Nikhil Kamath, which contributed ₹1.5 crore.

Several BJP leaders also made individual donations. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma donated ₹3 lakh, Assam minister Pijush Hazarika ₹2.75 lakh, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan ₹1 lakh, Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi ₹5 lakh, Indore Mayor Pushyamitra Bhargava ₹1 lakh, and Akash Vijayvargiya, son of senior BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya, also donated ₹1 lakh, among others.

In contrast, most opposition parties reported a sharp decline in donations. The Congress received ₹522.13 crore in 2024-25, a fall of about 43 per cent from ₹1,129 crore in the previous year. The Trinamool Congress saw donations drop to ₹184.08 crore from ₹618.8 crore, while the Bharat Rashtra Samithi reported just ₹15.09 crore, down from ₹580 crore.

The Aam Aadmi Party, however, recorded an increase, collecting ₹39.2 crore compared to ₹22.1 crore last year. The Telugu Desam Party received ₹85.2 crore in donations, down from ₹274 crore, but also earned ₹102 crore through fees and subscriptions. The Biju Janata Dal reported ₹60 crore in donations, compared to ₹246 crore in the previous fiscal.

The 2024-25 financial year is also the first without electoral bonds, after the Supreme Court struck down the scheme as unconstitutional in February 2024. Since its introduction in 2018, the electoral bond scheme had enabled political parties to receive over ₹16,000 crore in anonymous donations, with the BJP receiving the largest share. 

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