Electoral Bonds: Election Commission Publishes Data That Can Match Donors With Parties
The data was submitted to the Commission earlier in the day by the State Bank of India, in line with the Supreme Court order.
The Election Commission of India has released the fresh data set of electoral bonds with details that can help match the donors with the political parties that received the funds.
The poll body published two separate lists of the donors and recipients of donations made between April 2019 and January 2024 on Thursday. It includes alphanumeric numbers associated with the electoral bonds that can identify the donor with the recipient.
The data was submitted to the Commission earlier in the day by the State Bank of India, in line with the Supreme Court order.
The State Bank of India was the only bank authorised to sell and redeem electoral bonds, which were first issued in March 2018. Last month, the top court struck down the electoral bond scheme in a unanimous ruling, calling it unconstitutional.
The bank was then ordered to furnish all details of the bearer instrument to the poll body. It released a set of data last week, but without the alphanumeric numbers that establishes a link between donors and parties.
Qwik Supply Chain Pvt., a company with a registered address at Navi Mumbai's Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City and having links to Reliance Industries Ltd., gave Rs 395 crore to the BJP and Rs 25 crore to the Shiv Sena, reported PTI.
Honeywell Properties Pvt., another firm with a Reliance link, purchased bonds worth Rs 30 crore on April 8, 2021, and gave all of them to the BJP, the report said.
Lottery company Future Gaming and Hotel Services Pvt. also gave at least Rs 47 crore to the Trinamool Congress in October 2021. The company has emerged as the largest donor via electoral bonds, according to it.
The BJP is the biggest overall recipient (Rs 6,986.5 crore) of the bonds since they were introduced in 2018. The Trinamool Congress was the second (Rs 1,397 crore), followed by Congress (Rs 1,334 crore), BRS (Rs 1,322 crore) and Odisha's ruling party BJD (Rs 944.5 crore). The DMK was the sixth biggest recipient.
Among other major contributors were Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Ltd. (Rs 966 crore), Vedanta Ltd. (Rs 400 crore), and Haldia Energy Ltd. (Rs 377 crore).
The Bharti Group, with a donation of Rs 247 crore, is next on the list, followed by Essel Mining and Industries Ltd. (Rs 224 crore), Western UP Power Transmission Co. (Rs 220 crore), Keventer Foodpark Infra Ltd. (Rs 195 crore) and Madanlal Ltd. (Rs 185 crore).