Rajiv Gandhi’s “back room boys” of the mid-eighties pioneered the commercialisation of Indian elections. Arun Nehru was the first to draft a private advertising agency, Rediffusion, to design the Congress party’s 1984 poll campaign; posters, pamphlets, et al. In 2012-13, with ample funding and corporate support, Narendra Modi launched India’s first full-blown ‘Americanised’ election campaign. It was all about Modi-centred personalised assurances, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), his party, was pushed into the background.What unfolded in 2014 was a presidential-style mobilisation with covered enclosures, fans and ACs replacing the old maidan rallies. Everything in that campaign was promised, done or assailed in the name of the top boss.In the United States, presidential campaigns begin with mopping up huge corporate funds. For Modi, funds came through his own corporate sponsors. Thus, by the time the Bharatiya Janata Party (PM) formally decided to make him prime minister-nominee, a high-pitch cult had built up and fund collections had reached critical mass. After Modi took over as prime minister, his finance minister Arun Jaitley’s first priority was to craft the electoral bonds scheme that enabled record donations from anonymous donors.Expectedly, the BJP cornered a bulk of the bond money. A detailed breakup showed that the ruling party got Rs 5,271.97 crore and the Congress just Rs 952.39 crore. The BJP’s war chest grew even bigger after the Supreme Court annulled the electoral bonds scheme. In 2024-25, the party received a massive Rs 3,112.5 crore – nearly 82% – of the Rs 3,811.34 crore distributed by nine electoral trusts.It received Rs 2,180.71 crore from the Prudent Electoral Trust out of Rs 2,668.49 crore and Rs 757.62 crore from Progressive Electoral Trust out of Rs 915 crore. The Congress received only Rs 298.76 crore or 7.83% of the total.A year after the electoral bond scheme was scrapped, BJP’s corpus grew by over 50% to Rs 6,088 crore. Among the donors were corporate groups and clans such as the Tatas, Mahindras, O.P. Jindal, L&T and Megha Industries. On the other hand, donations to the Congress party almost halved to Rs 522 crore. BJP’s corpus grew to almost 12 times the size of the Congress’s kitty.The donations received by a dozen opposition parties, including the Congress, added up to Rs 1,343 crores in 2024-25.Among the contributors to the BJP were Prudent Electoral Trust, Progressive Electoral Trust of Tatas, the A.B. Electoral Trust, New Democratic Electoral Trust (Mahindra Group), and the donor companies included Serum Institute of India, Rungta Group, Bajaj Group, ITC Group, Hero Enterprises and Vedanta Group.The Prudent trust has traditionally been a major source of donations for the BJP. Data from the Election Commission shows that between 2018 and 2025, contributions to the BJP increased more than 32-fold via this trust. It also reveals that the most dramatic increases came during the 2024 general election, when the trust nearly tripled its donations to the BJP – from Rs 724 crore to Rs 2,180 crore. In comparison, the trust donated just Rs 488 crore to other parties.(As many as 285 donations were made to Prudent by more than 100 firms. The trust then cut cheques to political parties. This makes it hard to trace which firm donated how much and to which political party.)Other significant donors include Macrotech Developers, Derive Investments, Modern Road Makers and Lotus Hometextiles.All this has been part of the BJP’s top duo’s diversified strategy to open a new front: demoralise rival parties by massive use of money in elections. Consider how a politician like Supriya Sule, daughter of Sharad Pawar, have complained about the politics of stealth and money power used by BJP operators.“Everyone knows how money has been used this time in civic elections,” she said after the recent civic polls in Maharashtra, adding, “Politics has changed completely. The use of money has increased manifold. It was not like this earlier. We cannot fight against such blatant misuse of money power in elections. Earlier, political parties used to distribute the money in a few pockets. Now, it is being used to win over everyone – from those in the slums to those living in high-rises,” she said.From Bihar, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav highlighted a similar trend of the BJP resorting to money power. He said during a debate in the state assembly that the BJP had pumped in at least Rs 40,000 crore during the last election to defeat opposition candidates. He said tax dodgers and government contractors have never had it so good.The bulging war chests and all-out effort to woo voters by flooding the pre-election economy with cash has many curious side effects. A large number of tax dodgers have fraudulently claimed that they donated political funds to candidates of recognised or unrecognised political parties. They did this to take advantage of Section 80 GGC of the Income Tax Act, which allows tax exemptions for donations to political parties and charitable organisations.The income tax department has now cracked the whip to identify such racketeers. Many of these donations were made in cash or kind, which are ineligible for deductions under existing tax rules. Notices have been issued to a large number of such persons, asking them to furnish evidence to prove their innocence.What has happened in the northeastern states is an Electoral Bond-style quid pro quo between the government and its favoured contractors. Investigators have found that more than half of BJP funds in four northeastern states came from those who won government contracts. In Assam, the BJP got 52.34% of such funds from contractors.Similarly, more than half of the donations above Rs 20,000 the BJP collected from Arunachal Pradesh in 2023-24 also came from those who won state and Union government contracts. In the same year, over 61.7% of the money the BJP garnered from Tripura was from similar contracting sources. In the previous year, this number was a whopping 84.12%.The business of elections in India is an area in which fictional statistics are interwoven with actuals to churn out make-believe sets of accounting. There can be some facts in the election funds collected by the political parties. But the details of election expenditure submitted to the election commission are totally fictional. The truth is that it is genuinely impossible for political parties to track their real-time expenditure in such a vast field as an Indian election.Thus, candidates file one set of accounts that the Election Commission accepts without much hassle, because the submission of these accounts is an unavoidable formality.Certain expenditures, like cash payments and liquor distribution, are widely practiced during elections. There are a variety of other malpractices that people see and hear about but which never get officially recorded. Hence everyone knows expenditure accounting is fictional but accepted.Analysing the formal returns of expenditure submitted by the parties for 2024 Lok Sabha and assembly elections, the Association for Democratic Reform (ADR) says they collectively spent 96.22% of their travel expenses – or Rs 765.366 crore – on their star campaigners.Travel expenses of other leaders were pegged at Rs 30.048 crore or just 3.78% of the total. This highlights the domination of super-leaders or presidentialisation of Indian elections.The ADR study also said the political parties together spent the highest on publicity (Rs 2008.295 crore or 53.32%) followed by travel (Rs 795.414 crore or 21.12%). A lump sum of Rs 402.177 crore or 10.68% was paid to the candidates. The BJP alone spent Rs 2,257.05 crore for “election and general propaganda”. Spending on electronic media was the highest, at Rs 1,124.96 crore, followed by Rs 897.42 crore on advertisements.In BJP-ruled states, routine maintenance and election expenses are met by local resources. But in “new” areas, or where the party is traditionally weak, all organisational matters are directly handled by the high command. In these states – southern states, West Bengal, Punjab, etc. – elections are considered an integral part of the party’s expansion plans. It is a continuous process.For this, funds from the BJP’s war chest liberally flow through multiple channels. Any state leader or group of leaders could get facilities and funds if they convince the Delhi bosses that their project or plans could help expand the BJP influence to bring in a new leader or group into its fold. The target could be Pasmanda Muslims or a church group or a leader of another party.The bosses would readily lend their support – funds or the presence of Modi or Shah at meetings – even if the success rate is low. In most cases, the bosses will take a chance even if the ‘catch’ is of low value. Every event in ‘new’ states are an occasion for the BJP to expand and for special funds to flow from the centre.There are also special events like a workers’ meeting or a central leader addressing state leaders in open- or closed-door sessions. In such cases, the flow of money and materials from the centre may be so large that it fails to absorb the full amount. As a result, bags, backpacks and folders with BJP colours and symbols are seen even at unlikely places: even in homes of Congress, DMK, CPM and TMC workers. The flood turns into a deluge.BJP posters and wall writings are pulled in many places soon after they are put up by the contractors. This is because there are too few BJP activists actually around to take objection.In an age of fractured mandates, personality cults and transactional alliances, P. Raman brings clarity to India’s shifting political equations. With Realpolitik, the veteran journalist peers beneath the slogans and spin to reveal the power plays, spectacle, crises and insecurities driving India’s politics.