Electoral bonds case: Congress slams SBI; takes a dig at PM Modi

Tribune News Service

Neeraj Mohan

New Delhi, March 7

In a blistering critique aimed at the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Congress Party has accused the State Bank of India (SBI) of complicity, slamming the bank for delay in disclosing the names of electoral bond donors.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, in response to the Supreme Court’s directive for the SBI to unveil details of electoral bond donors and recipients within three weeks, took to his social media account X, alleging that the SBI conveniently requested an extension until June 30th — strategically scheduled after the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, thus aiding the BJP’s “Pradhan Mantri Chanda Chipao Yojana”

The SBI cited the decoupling of its data on the sale and encashment of electoral bonds to maintain anonymity as the reason for the delay. According to the bank, the process of matching the buyers of the 22,217 electoral bonds issued since 2019 with the respective beneficiary parties would take months.

Simultaneously, an NGO filed a contempt plea in the Supreme Court on Thursday, challenging the SBI’s application seeking an extended timeline to disclose the details of each electoral bond encashed by political parties.

Ramesh took a dig at Prime Minister Modi, stating, “A man who famously said ‘Na Khaunga, Na Khaane Dunga’ is now insisting on ‘Na Bataunga, Na Dikhaunga’.

“However, we know that each electoral bond was sold with two conditions - 1. Detailed Know Your Customer (KYC) exercise by the SBI branches to identify the buyer 2. ⁠Hidden serial numbers on the bonds. The SBI, therefore, definitively has the data of both the donor and the recipient political party,” he added.

Ramesh pointed out that the Finance Ministry noted in 2017 that records of purchasers are always available in the banking channel and can be retrieved as and when required by enforcement agencies.

“What has changed between now and then? We also know for a fact that in 2018, when a political party tried to encash some electoral bonds that had expired, the SBI sought permission from the Finance Ministry and moved with alacrity to enable the encashment of these bonds,” he added.

Alleging a ‘lame excuse’ by the SBI to avoid disclosing details of bond donors before the elections, Ramesh insisted that the Prime Minister is terrified of revealing his corporate donors to the people of India, citing a retired Finance and Economics Affairs Secretary in the Modi Government.

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#BJP #Congress #Narendra Modi #State Bank of India SBI