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PremiumElectoral Bonds Data Highlights: Union Home Minister Amit Shah defended the electoral bonds scheme, which had been deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) released the list of entities involved in the sales and purchase of contentious electoral bonds on Thursday.
The State Bank of India (SBI) submitted the data on electoral bonds to the electoral panel body on 12 March after the SC rejected its plea to give the bank the more time to submit details. The SC in its February order gave a landmark judgement by scrapping the Electoral Bonds scheme. The court called it “unconstitutional".
According to data released by the State Bank of India, nearly 50 percent of the total electoral bond funds collected went to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In contrast, the principal opposition party, the Indian National Congress, received only 11 percent of the funds.
Several prominent political parties have benefited from the electoral bonds scheme. These parties include the BJP, Congress, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), Trinamool Congress, Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), Shiv Sena, YSR Congress Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Biju Janata Dal (BJD), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and Jana Sena Party.
Catch the Electoral Bond highlights here.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, Trinamool Congress, and the Congress are among the top three political parties that benefitted from the electoral bonds, according to data uploaded by the Election Commission on its website on Thursday.
The data on electoral bonds was made public after the State Bank of India, following the Supreme Court's order, submitted it to the election body.
According to the data, the BJP received funding of over ₹6,061 crore via electoral bonds, while the TMC got ₹1,610 crore. The Congress received ₹1,422 crore through those bonds. Read here.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman dismissed claims of a connection between recent probe agency raids and the electoral bonds scheme as mere “assumptions."
Addressing the India Today Conclave 2024, Sitharaman defended the government's move to introduce electoral bonds, stating that it has brought transparency to political funding.
"This matter is in court already. The verdict has come, SBI submitted... One question comes to mind, was the earlier system 100% perfect...nahi.... At least white money goes to political parties. We moved to a transparent system...it's certainly not better but one-bit head," the Finance Minister said, as quoted by India Today. Read here.
Adding to the chorus of opposition against the BJP-led Centre after the publication of the details of political funding through electoral bonds on the official portal of the Election Commission (EC), Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday labelled the electoral bond scheme as the "biggest extortion racket in the world".
Addressing a press conference on Friday, on the sidelines of his ongoing 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra', Rahul claimed that the ED and CBI are no longer autonomous institutions but are weapons in the hands of the BJP and RSS to target Opposition leaders.
In a post on X, Rahul, fired a fresh salvo at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, stating, "Narendra Modi ran the world's largest extortion racket in the name of electoral bonds."
Noting that he fully respects the Supreme Court order on electoral bonds, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday said the scheme was introduced to end black money in politics and added that it should have been improved rather than scrapped.
Shah also said that the one nation, one election is the concept of the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and when it will be implemented, it will ensure faster development and end recurring expenditure.
"Electoral bonds were introduced to end the influence of black money in Indian politics. Everyone has to accept the decision given by the Supreme Court. I fully respect the Supreme Court decision. But I feel that instead of completely scrapping the electoral bonds, it should have been improved," he said at an interaction at the India Today Conclave.
The data published by ECI showed people and corporates buying bonds of several denominations, the lowest of ₹1,000, the next biggest ₹10,000, ₹1 lakh, ₹10 lakh and ₹1 crore.
Those who purchased ₹1,000 bonds included Raipur Bottling Company, Ray Constructions Ltd and Dhruv Cotton Processing Pvt Ltd, among corporate entities in addition to the behemoth ITC Ltd.The data also showed people and corporates buying bonds of several denominations, the lowest of ₹1,000, the next biggest ₹10,000, ₹1 lakh, ₹10 lakh and ₹1 crore.
Those who purchased ₹1,000 bonds included Raipur Bottling Company, Ray Constructions Ltd and Dhruv Cotton Processing Pvt Ltd, among corporate entities in addition to the behemoth ITC Ltd.
While mostly corporates, including established names and little-known ones, went for the top-denomination bonds, there were also several individuals who bought multiple such bonds.
These also included big industrialists such as Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Rahul Bhatia, as also common-sounding names like Saurabh Gupta, Unnikrishnan K, Raju Kumar Sharma, Tavinder Singh Kohli, Rahul Jagannath Joshi, Kanwar Lal Patni, Raunak Gupta, Anita Hemant Shah, Ashok Kumar Modi and Avinash Modi.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday termed the scrapped electoral bonds scheme brought in by the BJP-led Union government as the "biggest extortion racket in the world."
The funds amassed through the scheme were used to split political parties and topple opposition governments, he alleged at a press conference here, a day after data pertaining to the scheme was made public following Supreme Court directions.
There was no correlation between the electoral bonds and the contracts given by Congress or other opposition parties' governments in states, said Gandhi, whose Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra is in Maharashtra in its last leg.
Corporate donations worth thousands of crores to political parties through now-scrapped electoral bonds may have hit the headlines, but there were also 132 such bonds of just ₹1,000 each bought by individuals as well as corporates, including behemoth ITC Ltd.
Together, these bonds were worth ₹1.32 lakh, accounting for a minuscule 0.0001 per cent of the total value of 18,871 bonds worth ₹12,155 crore, details of which have been made public by the Election Commission of India.
On the other hand, as many as 11,671 bonds of the highest ₹1 crore denomination were purchased in nearly a four-year period beginning April 12, 2019, and they accounted for a whopping 96 per cent of the overall value of all such bonds bought for making donations to various political parties.
Qwik Supply Chain Private Limited, a little-known company with a registered address at Navi Mumbai's Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City (DAKC) and having links to Reliance Industries, was the third largest donor to political parties using electoral bonds.
It bought ₹410 crore of electoral bonds between financial years 2021-22 and 2023-24, but Reliance said the company is not a subsidiary of any Reliance entity.
Aam Aadmi Party challenged the BJP to disclose the details of overall funds it got through these bonds, and accused it of receiving proceeds of crime from companies under probe by the ED.
Delhi cabinet minister Saurabh Bharadwaj asked if the BJP would accept receiving funds from companies that were attached by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with money laundering.
"The Bharatiya Janata Party received over ₹6,000 crore in the form of electoral bonds, the biggest share than any other party. Why was the BJP not revealing how much funds they have received.
"These companies bought the electoral bonds after they were raided by the ED. This means the proceeds of crime have gone to the Centre via the electoral bonds," Bharadwaj alleged as he read out names of companies raided by the ED.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday denied any link between the functioning of investigative agencies, including ED raids, and electoral funding to the ruling party, saying these allegations are just assumptions.
"What if the companies gave the money, and after that, we still went and knocked at their doors through ED (Enforcement Directorate). Is that a probability or not...It is an assumption that the ED went and knocked at their doors, and to save themselves they came up with funds. The second assumption is that are you sure that they have given (electoral bonds) to BJP. What if they probably gave to regional parties," she said while speaking at India Today Conclave.
"PM Modi said 'Na khaunga, na khane dunga'; now it is exposed that BJP made money out of electoral bonds. Na khaunga, na kahne dunga, sirf meri party ko khilaunga sab. Whatever PM Modi does, he does it for his own gains, and his party's gains," Kharge said.
Megha Engineering and Infrastructure, the little-known Hyderabad-based firm that in recent years won the prestigious Zojila tunnel deal among other projects, forayed into city gas and acquired a media group, was the second largest donor to political parties using electoral bonds.
Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd (MEIL) bought a total of ₹966 crore worth of bonds between financial years 2019-20 and 2023-24 - the period when it won the project to build an all-weather road tunnel in Jammu and Kashmir in 2020 as well as licenses to retail CNG and piped cooking gas in some cities.
Regional parties received over ₹5,221 crore in donations through electoral bonds between April 2019 and January 2024 which was ₹839 crore less than the ₹6,060.51 crore raised by the BJP alone in the period under review.
According to the data of the electoral bonds published by the Election Commission, two national parties - the Congress and the AAP - have raised ₹1,421.86 crore and ₹65.45 crore respectively in the period under review. The other national parties - the BSP, the CPI(M) and the NPP - did not receive any funds through electoral bonds.
Among the regional parties, the Trinamool Congress alone raised ₹1,609.53 crore, which was 30 per cent of the total donations received by 22 regional parties who got funds through electoral bonds.
The Bharat Rashtra Samithi raised ₹1,214.70 crore through electoral bonds, the BJD got ₹775.50 crore, the DMK ₹639 crore, the YSRCP ₹337 crore, the TDP ₹218.88 crore and the Shiv Sena raised 159.38 crore.
Congress President M Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday demanded a special investigation into the electoral bonds scheme -- through which the ruling party has encashed ₹6,060 crore over five years -- and said the BJP's bank accounts must be frozen till its completion. Kharge also raised the issue of several companies purchasing electoral bonds soon after they faced raids by central agencies such as Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax Department.
Future Gaming and Hotel Services - ₹1,368 crore
* Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd - ₹966 crore
* Qwik Supply Chain Private Ltd - ₹410 crore
* Vedanta Ltd - ₹400 crore
* Haldia Energy Ltd - ₹377 crore
* Bharati Group - ₹247 crore
* Essel Mining and Industries Ltd - ₹224 crore
* Western UP Power Transmission - ₹220 crore
* Keventer Foodpark Infra Ltd - ₹194 crore
* Madanlal Ltd - ₹185 crore
* DLF Group - ₹170 crore
* Yashoda Super Speciality Hospital - ₹162 crore
* Utkal Alumina International - ₹145.3 crore
* Jindal Steel and Power Ltd - ₹123 crore
* Birla Carbon India - ₹105 crore
* Rungta Sons - ₹100 crore
* Dr Reddy's - ₹80 crore
* Piramal Enterprises Group - ₹60 crore
* Navyuga Engineering - ₹55 crore
* Shirdi Sai Electricals - ₹40 crore
* Cipla Ltd - ₹39.2 crore
* Lakshmi Niwas Mittal - ₹35 crore
* Grasim Industries - ₹33 crore
* Jindal Stainless - ₹30 crore
* Bajaj Auto - ₹25 crore
* Sun Pharma Laboratories - ₹25 crore
* Mankind Pharma - ₹24 crore
* Bajaj Finance - ₹20 crore
* Maruti Suzuki India - ₹20 crore
* Ultratech - ₹15 crore
* TVS Motors - ₹10 crore
* Edelweiss Group - ₹4 crore
Financial services firms like Bajaj Finance, Piramal Enterprises, and Edelweiss Group together purchased electoral bonds worth ₹87 crore between April 1, 2019 and January 2024.
Piramal Enterprises, PHL Finvest Pvt Ltd and Piramal Capital and Housing Finance bought bonds worth ₹60 crore during the period.
It was followed by three entities of Edelweiss Group, subscribing to ₹4 crore bonds, while Bajaj Finance purchased bonds worth ₹20 crore, as per the details published by the Election Commission of India on Thursday evening.
Gold loan financier Muthoot Finance subscribed electoral bonds worth ₹3 crore during the period.
Data released by the ECI reveals action by ED, CBI, and IT officials on at least 14 out of top 30 donor companies.
These include:
-Future Gaming
-Megha Engineering
-Haldia Energy Limited
-Vedanta Limited
-Yashoda Super Speciality Hospital
-DLF Commercial Developers Limited
-Jindal Steel and Power Limited
-Chennai Greenwoods Private Limited
-Dr Reddy's Laboratories Limited
-IFB Agro Limited
-NCC Limited
-Divi S Laboratory Limited
-United Phosphorus India Limited
-Aurobindo Pharma
No one can point fingers at BJP govt over corruption unlike previous Cong regimes, said Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in Jharkhand.
Among the top donors to political parties, three companies purchased bonds as they faced a probe by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Tax Department.
The three companies are- Future Gaming and Hotels Pvt Ltd; Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Ltd (MEIL), and Anil Aggarwal’s Vedanta Group.
Jindal Steel and Power is also facing a probe by the central agencies. It has donated ₹123 crore to political parties via electoral bonds.
Aurobindo Pharma, embroiled in the Dlehi liquor case, donated ₹49 crore.
Similarly, Rashmi Cement and Shirdi Sai Electricals are among the list of companies that purchased electoral bonds and are under ED and I-T scanners.
Qwik Supply Chain Private Limited, a company linked to Reliance, contributed ₹410 crore to political parties via electoral bonds.
Future Gaming and Hotel Services PR, the top purchase of electoral bonds from April 2019 to January 2024, was raided by the Enforcement Directorate several times.
Future Gaming bought ₹1,368 crore of electoral bonds--highest by any other entity between 2019 and 2024.
However, the company has been under the radar of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) since 2011.
In December 2021, ED attached ₹19.5 worth of properties under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
In 2015, the ED sleuths seized ₹100 crore cash stacked in Siliguri, West Bengal
In 2023, a lottery distributor in Punjab, Arunjot Singh Sodhi moved High Court, alleging a ₹900 crore lottery scam.
The Punjab government informed the HC in January this year that an additional director-general of police is probing into the matter.
As per the Election Commission of India's website, the top 20 donors are-
Congress leader Manickam Tagore alleged that companies who donated funds to the BJP were given projects.
In an interview with the ANI news agency on the disclosure of the electoral bonds on the election commission's website, Tagore said, "Among 1,300 companies which have bought the electoral bond, 6,000 crores have been gone to the BJP. There is a pattern in the donations, that pattern makes it clear that there is a scam. The Companies which have donated, they've been given projects...".
Congress general secretary in charge of communications, Jairam Ramesh said that 60% of the electoral bonds went to the BJP, based on analysis.
"Those who have donated were awarded contracts and other projects. It is a joint conspiracy," the veteran Congress leader said.
With a slew of unknown and mysterious donors found in the electoral bonds data, Congress MP Manish Tewari has said that the Supreme Court should order the "corporate veil of shell companies to be lifted".
Tiwari said the identity of the "true donor or true purchaser" should come out.
The Supreme Court on Friday said that its previous judgment clearly stated that all details of electoral bonds should be made available including date of purchase, name of purchaser, and the denomination.
However, SBI did not disclose the electoral bonds (unique alphanumeric numbers), the court said today.
The SC has now issued notice to the SBI and has sought a response by 18th March from the government-owned lender.
Supreme Court says SBI has not disclosed the unique numbers of the electoral bonds, which it had to do.
Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal has demanded SIT probe in electroal bonds matter. In a media interview, Sibal said, "Like it was done in 2G case, where an SIT was made, in this case also an SIT should be constituted to probe the matter. We have to see how the law will see it now...It should also be found out who donated to the PM-CARES. It's a matter of investigation which party got how many funds".
According to Mint's analysis, among the list of top-100 donors of electoral bonds, many of the websites of the companies remained 'inactive', therefore the details of the entities could not be found.
Some of the names include:
As per the data on electoral bonds, available on the Election Commission of India's website, the top 20 donors purchased bonds of ₹5,830 crore- 48% (approx) of the total bonds purchased between April 2019 and February 2024.
Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd (MEIL) is the second-highest purchaser of electoral bonds after Future Gaming and Hotel Services. The construction company, whose website is inactive, purchased bonds worth ₹966 crore between 2019 and 2023.
The industrial conglomerate was established by Pamireddy Pitchi Reddy (PP Reddy) in 1989. Some other prominent projects of Megha Engineering are--Zojila Tunnel, the Telangana irrigation project, the Thane-Borivali twin tunnel project, etc.
MEIL received a ₹5,000 crore order from the defence ministry in 2023.
In the disclosed list of entities that procured electoral bonds for contributions to political parties, an unknown company called Future Gaming and Hotel Services, stood out as largest buyer of the bonds.
Future Gaming and Hotel Services' contributions to the Electoral Bonds Scheme (EBS) totalled ₹1,368 crore from 2019 to 2024.
The Future Gaming and Hotel Services is helmed by "Lottery King" Santiago Martin.
Martin, a labourer in Yangon, Myanmar, returned to India in 1988. He established a lottery enterprise in Tamil Nadu in the same year.
Over time, he expanded his businesses in Karnataka, Kerala, as well as, in Bhutan and Nepal.
Martin also became the President of the All India Federation of Lottery Trade and Allied Industries. His Future Gaming Solutions India, gained membership in the esteemed World Lottery Association.
Congress received ₹1,422 crore of funding from April 2019 to January this year-11% of the total funding.
The Congress party has flagged discrepancies in the electoral bonds data published by the Election Commission on its official website on Thursday.
According to Amitabh Dubey, in charge of research and monitoring in the Congress' communication department, the donors file has 18,871 entries, and the recipient's file has 20,421 entries.
He asked, "Why the discrepancy?" and quoted SBI.
Dubey also said that the electoral bond scheme began in 2017, but the data presented began in April 2019.
India's leading lottery company Future Gaming and Hotel Services purchased highest amount of bonds worth ₹1,368 crore, followed by Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd at ₹966 crore.
Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta, Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel, Anand Mahindra-led Mahindra & Mahindra are among the top-donors that donated funds to political parties as per the Election Commission's documents.
The other donors are-Finolex Cables Ltd, Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, Edelweiss Housing Finance Ltd, GHCL Ltd, Jindal Poly Films Limited, ITC Limited, Grasim Industries Limited PR, Piramal Capital and Housing Finance Limited, Piramal Enterprises Ltd, Muthoot Finance Limited, Pegasus Properties Private Limited, Bajaj Finance Ltd, Apollo Tyres Limited and SpiceJet Limited.
JK Cement Ltd, DLF Commercial Developers Limited, Avon Cycles Ltd, Zydus Healthcare Limited, Cipla Limited, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd, Mankind Pharma Limited, Qwik Supply Chain Private Limited, Haldia Energy Limited, Essel Mining and Industry Limited, Western UP Power Transmission Company Limited, Keventer Food Parks Limited, Jindal Steel and Power Limited, BG Shirke Construction Technology Pvt Ltd, Rungta Sons Pvt Ltd and Torrent Power Limited are also among donors, according to the data.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) received massive funding through electoral bonds over the past five years.
According to the EC's data on electoral bonds, BJP received funding of over ₹6,061 crore in 5 years.
Notably, the BJP-led Central government introduced electoral bonds in 2018 claiming that it would cut down on black money in Indian elections.
However, in February this year, just months before the Lok Sabha election, India's Supreme Court ruled against it terming it "unconstitutional".
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Trinamool Congress, and the Congress Party were among the top political parties that received a lion's share of funds from the electoral bonds.
According to the Mint's analysis, only seven out of the 30 Sensex firms featured in the list that purchased electoral bonds since April 2019:
According to the Election Commission's website, the list of top entities which purchased electoral bonds to make political donations are-
Future Gaming and Hotel Services purchased bonds worth ₹1,368 crore while Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd at ₹966 crore.
