Major beneficiaries of electoral bonds haven’t named donors: EC data

Tribune News Service

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, March 17

The Election Commission today made public the declarations received from political parties on electoral bonds with none of the major recipients, including the BJP, Trinamool and the Congress, revealing the list of firms that had made the donations.

519 parties Have submitted declarations to the Election Commission

Rs 16,518 crore worth of bonds sold from March 2018 to Jan 2024, as per ADR

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Future Gaming top bond buyer for DMK

DMK got bonds worth Rs 656.5 cr, of which Rs 509 cr (77%) came from Future Gaming, the biggest buyer of bonds at Rs 1,368 cr. As all parties have not disclosed donors, it wasn’t known who got the rest Rs 859 cr worth of bonds from Future Gaming.

Some show nil

The CPM has declared that it has not received funds through electoral bonds. Also, the filings made by the AIMIM, Indian National Lok Dal and Bahujan Samaj Party showed nil receipts

Plea in SC seeks more data

A plea has been filed in the SC seeking disclosure of details of electoral bonds sold from March 1, 2018, to April 11, 2019, saying voters are entitled to know funding to political parties for the entire period since the start of the scheme

‘Scheme an experiment’

Electoral bond scheme is an experiment and time will tell how beneficial it has been. Questions were raised even when EVMs were introduced. — Dattatreya Hosabale, RSS Gen Secy

Only 11 recognised parties have included the names of donors and the amounts they contributed while others only mentioned date-wise listing of value of the bonds encashed by them. These include Samajwadi Party, Nationalist Congress Party, Janata Dal (United), National Conference, DMK and the AIADMK.

Barring Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, a total of 519 parties have submitted declarations to the EC. The CPM, CPI, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, IUML and the Kerala Congress said they did not receive any electoral bonds.

Aam Aadmi Party, which had applauded the Supreme Court judgment and is among the 11 parties to reveal the names of donors, said it encashed bonds from Bajaj Group and Torrent Pharmaceuticals, among others. While AAP did not give a cumulative figure of its donations and disclosed electoral bond data for only 2018-19, the SBI’s data showed it had received Rs 65.45 crore. It is estimated to have received another Rs 3.55 crore after its filing with the EC, taking its total to Rs 69 crore.

Top purchaser of electoral bonds Future Gaming and Hotel Services donated Rs 509 crore to Tamil Nadu’s ruling party DMK through the now-scrapped payment mode. Future Gaming’s total donations stood at Rs 1,358 crore. The company, whose owner “lottery king” Santiago Martin has been under the ED scanner, accounted for over 77% of the total receipts from electoral bonds of Rs 656.5 crore disclosed by the DMK. Since most parties have not disclosed the names of donors, it was not known who were the beneficiaries of the balance Rs 859 crore worth bonds purchased by Future Gaming.

The DMK took on the BJP by pointing out that it gave a “crystal clear list” of donors. “We did so since we are open and we have nothing to hide! But that’s not the case with everyone, isn’t it? Why is the BJP, which got over 50 per cent of electoral bonds bought so far, silent and reluctant to declare source of funds?” it asked in an X post. Its regional rival AIADMK received Rs 6.05 crore, of which Rs 5 crore was from Chennai Super Kings.

The NC received Rs 50 lakh from Bharti Group, SDF Rs 50 lakh from Alembic Pharma while the SP got bonds from San Beverages, SK Traders and BS Traders. The JD(U) also received funding from Bharti Airtel, besides Shree Cement. Megha Engineering donated Rs 50 crore to the JD(S).

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