This headline has been flying around since the #TanishqAd fiasco, but it's actually very misleading, and hides the awesome scale of corporate money going to the BJP.
(Thread) https://twitter.com/bainjal/status/1316399435480403968

(2) The headline is misleading in at least two ways.
First, it’s true a Tata-controlled trust gave 356 cr to the BJP. In general, the BJP receives the vast majority of corporate funds disbursed through electoral trusts – many times more than all other parties combined.

(3) But that sum, and the sums donated through electoral trusts in general, are a fraction of all political donations. Much more -- 10x as much, in 2018-19 -- is routed via electoral bonds, where the donor's identity is a secret.

(4) Again, the BJP takes in more of these anonymous donations than every other party combined.
In 2017-18, it received 95% of the value of electoral bonds.
In 2018-19, ahead of Modi's reelection, it took in ~60%: Rs 1,450 crore from unknown sources. More reasonable? Except...

(5) These reports failed to highlight that the *most* funding via electoral bonds was paid out in April 2019, ie, a new FY -- Rs 2,256 crore which we still have no information about, not even to the extent of who the beneficiaries were.

(6) This is the second issue with that headline, and most of the reporting of the Tatas as the BJP's "top donors". We have yet to get any sense of where that last, massive tranche went -- even 18 months later.

(7) What we can say with confidence is that the BJP's was likely a major share, and that the donors -- though anonymous -- were not regular Indians.
Consistently nearly all electoral bonds are bought in denominations of Rs 10 lakh-1 crore, ie by corporations or the super-wealthy.

(8) Of course Rs 356 cr is a lot of money, but to say that Tata's electoral trust was the largest donor -- or that "BJP received 75% of its donation" from it -- makes the political enterprise look much more modest and transparent than it is.

(9) The only really accurate thing to say is that vast sums of corporate money are going to the ruling party, but Indians aren't allowed to know who it's from. https://thewire.in/political-economy/elections-2019-electoral-bonds-bjp

The second is closer to the (grim) truth, but it would have to be 86% to BJP. This is all-out crony capitalism. https://twitter.com/thebokettogirl/status/1319230188199108608?s=20