Electoral Bonds Data: BJP, TMC Silent On Donor Names, AAP, DMK, AIADMK, JD(S) Reveal Details
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The Election Commission Of India (ECI) on Sunday uploaded on its website documents received from political parties regarding receipts and redemption of Electoral Bonds under the now scrapped electoral bonds scheme. The extensive data submitted by political parties shows great discrepancies on how they maintained information on donors. This information was furnished by political parties in sealed covers to the ECI on directions issued by the Supreme Court.
While BJP in its letter stated a list of laws which exempted political parties from maintaining data on electoral bonds scheme, DMK, AIADMK, AAP, Janata Dal (Secular), and Samajwadi Party submitted names of donors along with the amount donated to the parties through the electoral bonds scheme. Notably, except for DMK, no other party that has disclosed names of donors which includes SP, AAP and NCP have issued any clarification on how they obtained data on donors.
The BJP encashed electoral bonds worth Rs 6,986.5 crore between April 2019 to September 2023. The electoral bonds scheme was introduced in 2018. The Supreme Court by an interim order had asked ECI to maintain data on electoral bonds received by political parties from April 2019.
At present, the Supreme Court has directed the disclosure of the electoral bonds sold between the period April 12, 2019, till February 15, 2024. Today’s data is from political parties from April 2019 to September 2023. Last week, ECI made public the data SBI submitted in two separate lists. One with name of donors and date and amount of donors and another with bonds redeemed by political parties. However, due to no serial number, it could not be said who donated to whom.
BJP in its submission to ECI said, “It is duly submitted that the Electoral Bonds were introduced with the aim of bringing only accounted for funds in political funding while protecting the donors from any consequences, therefrom. We hope that the information submitted herein meets your requirement. Should the commission need any other information or clarification, we shall be happy to provide. “
Trinamool Congress (TMC) which has emerged as the second largest receiver of donations from electoral bonds after BJP has also not disclosed names of donors. The Mamata Banerjee led party got nearly Rs 1397 crores from Electoral Bonds between April 2019 to September 2023.
Congress on the other hand attached a letter it wrote to the State Bank Of India (SBI) to furnish on its behalf details of the donors to the party to ECI in a sealed cover. The Congress party redeemed a total of Rs 1,334.35 crore through electoral bonds and is the third largest recipient of the electoral bonds.
The DMK which has emerged as one of the recipient of donation from Future Gaming and Services which is also one of the largest donor in the scheme has submitted an explaination on how they got information from donors:
“Format of Application for Issue of Electoral Bonds which is Annexure II of the above Scheme 2018 discloses that the details of the donors under the scheme have to be kept confidential by the authorised bank. The scheme also does not require the details of the donor to be furnished to the donee. Under these circumstances the donors did not strictly adhere to the requirement of furnishing their details whenever they handed over the electoral bonds to us. Be that as it may, following the directions of Hon’ble Supreme Court, we contacted our donors and we were able to collect the details from them.”
ALSO READ | Curious Case Of Rs 1000 Electoral Bonds Purchased By Big Corporate Donors Like ITC
As per data, MK Stalin led DMK got over Rs 500 crores as anonymous donations from Santiago Martin’s lottery-selling firm, Future Gaming. Another major donor to DMK is Megha Engineering with over Rs 105 crores as donation. (Check screengrab from list below.)
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