- Friday, January 24, 2025
The Election Commission of India on march 14 put up on its website the data on electoral bonds, a day ahead of the deadline fixed by the country’s Supreme Court.
By: Shubham Ghosh
FROM steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal to billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal’s Airtel, Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta, ITC, Mahindra and Mahindra, and a lesser-known Future Gaming and Hotel Services were among the prominent buyers of the now-scrapped electoral bonds for making political donations in India.
The Election Commission of India on Thursday (14) put up on its website the data on electoral bonds, a day ahead of the deadline fixed by the country’s Supreme Court.
Future Gaming, which was probed by economic crime-fighting agency Enforcement Directorate in March 2022, bought electoral bonds worth over Rs 1,350 crore (£127.6 million) under two different sets of companies.
Read: State Bank of India submits electoral bond details to top court
Among the known corporates, Agarwal’s Vedanta Ltd bought Rs 398 crore (£37.6 million) worth of bonds, while Sunil Mittal’s three companies together purchased a total of Rs 246 crore (£23.2 million) worth of bonds.
Steel magnate Lakshmi Niwas Mittal bought Rs 35 crore (£3.3 million) worth of bonds in his individual capacity.
Read: Our government works to build nation, not to win polls: Modi in Gujarat
Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering, which has bagged contracts of several large infrastructure projects, bought bonds worth Rs 966 crore (£91.3 million).
While most of the bonds have been issued in the name of political parties, the donations made to the Indian National Congress and the Samajwadi Party were made in the name of ‘President, All India Congress Committee’ and ‘Adyaksha Samajvadi Party’.
Following a Supreme Court directive, the State Bank of India (SBI), which was the authorised seller of electoral bonds, had shared the data with the poll panel on March 12.
The top court had given the Election Commission time till 5 pm local time on March 15 to upload the data on its website.
The EC has put the details on ‘Disclosure of Electoral Bonds Submitted by SBI’ in two parts — one listing the buyers and the other listing the beneficiary parties.
In an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court, the SBI said a total of 22,217 electoral bonds of varying denominations were purchased by donors between April 1, 2019, and February 15 this year, out of which 22,030 were redeemed by political parties.
According to the data uploaded by the poll panel, the buyers of electoral bonds included Spicejet, IndiGo, Grasim Industries, Megha Engineering, Piramal Enterprises, Torrent Power, Bharti Airtel, DLF Commercial Developers, Vedanta Ltd., Apollo Tyres, Edelweiss, PVR, Keventer, Sula Wines, Welspun, Sun Pharma, Vardhman Textiles, Jindal Group, Phillips Carbon Black Limited, CEAT tyres, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, ITC, Kaypee Enterprises, Cipla, and Ultratech Cement.
The parties that redeemed electoral bonds include the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress, AIADMK, BRS, Shiv Sena, TDP, YSR Congress, DMK, JD-S, NCP, Trinamool Congress, JDU, RJD, AAP, the Samajwadi Party, Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, BJD, Goa Forward Party, Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, Sikkim Krantikari Morcha, JMM, Sikkim Democratic Front, and the Jana Sena Party.
In a landmark verdict delivered on February 15, a five-judge Constitution bench had scrapped the federal government’s electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding, calling it “unconstitutional” and ordered disclosure by the commission of donors, the amount donated by them and the recipients.
According to a report by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), a total of 28,030 electoral bonds worth Rs 16,518 crore (£1.56 billion) have been sold from March 2018 to January 2024. The BJP has received the highest contributions through the electoral bonds amounting to Rs 6,566 crore (£621 million) or 54.77 per cent, followed by the Congress with Rs 1,123 crore (£106.2 million) or 9.37 per cent, Trinamool Congress Rs 1,092 crore (£103.2 million) or 9.11 per cent, it had revealed.
(With PTI inputs)
