On March 14, the Election Commission of India (ECI) released the data that listed every company—from well-known large corporations to obscure startups—that purchased electoral bonds in order to make donations to political parties.
Read the key pointers taken from the data
- Investing ₹1,368 crore, Future Gaming and Hotel Services—a company not well known to the general public—became the largest buyer of electoral bonds. This amount exceeds the contributions made by numerous prominent corporations. In March 2022, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) began to investigate Future Gaming.
- Industry titans like mining conglomerate Vedanta, led by Anil Agarwal, steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, and telecom behemoth Bharti Airtel, led by Sunil Bharti Mittal, were among the top donors. A few other well-known companies are the Goenkas, Spicejet, IndiGo, DLF, PVR, Birlas, Bajajs, Jindals, and Mahindra and Mahindra.
- Other contributors include the following: Jindal Group, Phillips Carbon Black Limited, CEAT tires, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Kaypee Enterprises, Cipla, Ultratech Cement, Edelweiss, Keventer, Sula Wines, Welspun, Sun Pharma, Vardhman Textiles, Megha Engineering, Torrent Power, DLF Commercial Developers, Vedanta Ltd., Apollo Tyres, and Welspun.
- The biggest beneficiary of the electoral bonds was the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which received ₹6,566 crore in donations (54.77% of the total). With ₹1,123 crore (9.37%), it fared better than the Congress party, which was its nearest rival. The Trinamool Congress, led by Mamata Banerjee and based mostly in West Bengal, was given ₹1,092 crore (or 9.11%).
- DMK, JD-S, NCP, 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 are among the other parties that have redeemed electoral bonds.
- Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Varun Gupta, B K Goenka, Jainendra Shah, and an individual only identified by first name Monika were among the individual donors.
- Qwik Supply Chain Pvt Ltd, based in Mumbai, purchased bonds from Haldia Energy for ₹377 crore and ₹410 crore. Yashoda Super Speciality Hospital in Ghaziabad purchased 162 bonds, most of which were worth ₹1 crore each. Buying bonds worth ₹18 crore was done by Bajaj Auto, ₹20 crore by Bajaj Finance, ₹36 crore by three IndiGo companies, ₹20 crore by Rahul Bhatia of IndiGo, and ₹65 lakh by Spicejet.
- Between April 1, 2019, and February 15, of this year, the bonds were bought. Political parties redeemed 22,030 of the 22,217 electoral bonds. The Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund received the bonds that political parties had not cashed in 15 days, according to the SBI.
- The Adani Group, headed by Gautam Adani, and Reliance Industries, led by Mukesh Ambani, were left off the donor list. These are the two largest conglomerates in India.
- Congress noted inconsistencies after the electoral bonds data was made public. It stated that there are 18,871 entries in the donors’ file and 20,421 entries in the recipients’ file.
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