Mallikarjun Kharge gives SBI's deadline extension plea a political angle
As the largest bank of India, State Bank of India (SBI) has asked for an extension of the deadline to disclose electoral bond details, the opposition party has linked the demand to politics in no time. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge accused the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) of hiding its “dubious dealing” behind SBI.
SBI’s petition to Supreme Court
The State Bank of India (SBI) petitioned the Supreme Court to extend the deadline until June 30, weeks after the court ordered the country’s biggest bank to reveal the specifics of bonds that political parties had cashed. The bank was given until March 6 by the court to provide the information.
Kharge described the electoral bonds program as undemocratic and opaque. He said that the bank is being used as a shield by the BJP government. “The Modi government is using the largest bank of our country as a shield to hide its dubious dealings through Electoral Bonds,” he said.
According to Kharge, the BJP wants the SBI to release the information after June 30, which is when the Lok Sabha elections are expected to end. “But the BJP wants it to be done after Lok Sabha elections. The tenure of this Lok Sabha will end on 16th June and SBI wants to share the data by 30th June,” Kharge said.
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BJP the biggest beneficiary of electoral bonds
He claimed the BJP was the biggest beneficiary of the scheme. “Isn’t the government conveniently hiding the BJP’s shady dealings where contracts of highways, ports, airports, power plants etc. were handed over to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cronies in lieu of these opaque electoral bonds,” he asked.
“Experts say that the 44,434 automated data entries of donors can be divulged and matched in just 24 hours. Why does the SBI then need 4 more months to collate this information?” he said.
“Congress party was crystal clear that the Electoral Bonds scheme was opaque, undemocratic and destroyed the level playing field. But the Modi government, PMO and FM bulldozed every institution – RBI, Election Commission, Parliament and Opposition to fill BJP’s coffers,” Kharge alleged.
Modi government attempting to overturn SC ruling
According to Kharge, the Modi administration is attempting to overturn the Supreme Court’s ruling by using the SBI. Congress MP Manish Tewari said the Supreme Court should not allow the SBI to “get away with its chicanery on Electoral Bonds”.
“People before the General Elections must know who got what from whom & whether there was any prima-facie quid pro quo involved?” he said.
On Monday, in a post on X, Rahul Gandhi had said: “Narendra Modi has put his entire force in order to hide the ‘donation business’.”
“When the Supreme Court has stated that it is the right of the people of the country to know the truth about electoral bonds, then why does the SBI not want this information to be made public before the elections?” he added.
In its appeal, SBI claimed that the donations were kept private and that getting the data required a lot of time. “It is submitted that the data related to the issuance of the bond and the data related to the redemption of the bond was kept recorded in two different silos. No central database was maintained. This was done to ensure that donors’ anonymity would be protected,” it said.
