As India passes the halfway mark of the general election, Narendra Modi’s personal popularity remains high – bumped up to 43%, according to one study, thanks to the optics of the Balakot airstrikes . Such effective campaign messaging, however, would be impossible without funds, and the BJP’s funding advantage has been the most under-examined factor in this election. The ruling party’s ability to spend on publicity – supported by a host of unofficial or secretive efforts – has sharply tilted the playing field, though at the cost of legal and ethical norms of Transparency. It begins simply with the power to raise funds from private donations. According to the elections think-tank, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), in the financial year of 2017-18, India’s seven largest political parties declared a combined income of Rs 1,397.90 crore. Of this, the BJP alone received Rs 1,027.339 crore – a whopping 73.5% of that income share. Almost all of the BJP’s income was fr