On March 14, the Election Commission published on its website the data received from the State Bank of India (SBI) about electoral bonds, following a Supreme Court directive to release the information before March 15. The EC in a statement said it had “uploaded the data on electoral bonds on its website as received from the SBI on “as is where is basis” in furtherance of disclosure and transparency.
The single largest donor on the list is Future Gaming and Hotel Services PR, which donated a cumulative sum of ₹1,368 crores via electoral bonds to political parties between April 12, 2019 and January 24, 2024. The firm, headed by lottery magnate Santiago Martin, had recently been under the scanner of the Enforcement Directorate. The ED attached ₹411 crore in the bank accounts of this firm, among others, in March 2022. On September 9, 2023, it was also subject to a prosecution complaint by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 before the PMLA Court, Kolkata.
From among parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party saw the lion’s share of electoral bonds encashed by parties– worth ₹6,060.5 crore and amounting to 47.5% of the total bonds encashed by all parties. This was followed by the AIl India Trinamool Congress, which received ₹1,609.50 crore, amounting to 12.6% of the total. The Indian National Congress received ₹1,421.9 crore or 11.1% of the total. The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (9.5%), Biju Janata Dal (6.1%), and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (5%) also encashed more than ₹500 crore worth of electoral bonds during this period.
Overall, electoral bonds worth over ₹12,155 crore were purchased by donors and more than ₹12,769 crore were encashed by parties during the same timeframe.
22 firms were noted to have donated more than ₹100 crore. Second on the list was Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited (MEIL), which donated ₹966 crore. The Western UP Power Transmission Company, also part of the MEIL group of companies, donated ₹220 crore.
The top 10 was rounded off by Qwik Supply Chain (₹410 crore), Haldia Energy (₹377 crore), Vedanta (₹375.65 crore), Essel Mining and Industries (₹224.45 crore), Bharti Airtel (₹198 crore), and Keventer Foodpark Infra (₹195 crore). Others making major electoral bonds purchases were Grasim Industries, Piramal Enterprises, Torrent Power, DLF Commercial Developers, Apollo Tyres, Lakshmi Mittal, Edelweiss, PVR, Sula Wine, Welspun, and Sun Pharma.
Information uploaded on the EC website showed that the SBI shared two tranches of data, one set with the name of the purchaser of each electoral bond, the date of purchase, and the denomination of the bond; and the other set with the name of the political party, date and denomination of bonds encashed.
The data provided by the SBI does not include the serial numbers of the bonds. On March 15, the Supreme Court issued a notice to SBI questioning why details of these unique alphanumeric numbers identifying individual electoral bonds were not handed over to the ECI for publication. The case has now been listed for March 18.
The top court has said that it will scan and digitise the documents given by the ECI and return the originals by 5 p.m. on Saturday. The ECI had sought the return of the documents pertaining to electoral bonds given confidentially to the Court in a sealed cover and sealed boxes in compliance with two orders on April 12, 2019 and November 2, 2023. It said it had not retained copies of these documents.
The Hindu’s Editorials
Text and Context
The Hindu’s Daily News Quiz
Which State has rejected the Centre’s fund to meet their financial crunch?
- Kerala
- Karnataka
- Tamil Nadu
- Jharkhand
To know the answer and to play the full quiz, click here.
