As per the numbers issued by the Election Commission of India (ECI), political parties received donations worth Rs 12,769 crore between April 2019 and January 2024.
In the calendar year 2019, Rs 2,385 crore was encashed by political parties. This dropped to Rs 363 crore in 2020, the year the world witnessed the coronavirus pandemic.
In 2021, as the world returned to normal, the funding to parties through electoral bonds stood at Rs 1,502 crore. The next year it increased to Rs 3,701 crore and in 2023, it was Rs 4,246 crore. In January 2024, when the last sale of electoral bonds took place, the funding was Rs 570 crore. In the years 2022 and 2023, parties redeemed electoral bonds worth nearly Rs 8,000 crore — over 62 per cent of the total money in the almost six-year period.
Compared to 2019, when the last Lok Sabha elections were held, the funding through these bonds in 2023 almost doubled.
It is also important to note that the SBI and Election Commission have released the details of purchase and redemption done post April 12, 2019, leaving Rs 623.21 crore disassociated with any company as they were purchased before April 12 but encashed later.
Of the unaccounted Rs 623 crore, Rs 466 crore was encashed by the BJP while Congress was second with Rs 70 crore.
In total, between April 2019 and January 2024, companies/individuals purchased electoral bonds worth Rs 12,155 crore. However, political parties received donations worth Rs 12,769 crore during the said period. Also, during the same period, bonds worth around Rs 10 crore expired without being cashed by any party.
In the April-May period in 2019, when the Lok Sabha elections were held, Rs 2,107 crore was encashed by political parties. This was nearly 90 per cent of the total funding through these bonds that year.
BJP took away the major share of this amount — more than half — at Rs 6,058 crore. The next in the list was TMC with Rs 1,609 crore. Little behind was the Congress at Rs 1,421 crore. These three parties accounted for a major portion of the redeemed electoral bonds.
More than half of BJP’s funding through electoral bonds was collected in the years 2022 and 2023 — Rs 3,439 crore. TMC collected Rs 1,030 crore in these two years — again more than half of the party’s total earning through electoral bonds. Same was for the Congress party.
In the purchaser list, corporate houses and businesses hold a major chunk of these bonds — almost 97 per cent. Of the total bonds worth Rs 12,155 crore, Rs 11,780 crore were purchased by businesses while Rs 375 crore was by individual donors.
In terms of bonds, 18,871 bonds were purchased between 2019 and 2024 — over 16,600 by businesses while 2,240 bonds were purchased by individuals.
The numbers analysed also show that only BJP, TMC and DMK have received funding through electoral bonds worth over Rs 500 crore from a single firm. While for BJP it was Megha Engineering & Infrastructures Ltd. which donated more than Rs 500 crore, for DMK and TMC, it was Future Gaming & Hotel Services Private Limited.
It is also important to note that Future Gaming and Hotel Services Private Limited purchased the highest amount of electoral bonds worth Rs 1,368 crore, followed by Megha Engineering & Infrastructures Limited at Rs 966 crore.
The Supreme Court last month struck down the electoral bond scheme, saying anonymous electoral bonds violated citizens’ right to information.
The court had asked the State Bank of India to share the data with the ECI and directed the poll body to publish these details on its website by March 15. On March 14, the Election Commission shared two sets of data — the bonds purchased by the individuals and the list of political parties that redeemed these bonds in their accounts.
On Thursday, the Election Commission of India released a fresh set of data related to these electoral bond schemes with the respective bond numbers that revealed the details of who donated how much to which party.
Comments
0 comment