New Delhi: The Election Commission has just unveiled the latest tranche of data on electoral bonds, previously submitted by political parties to the Supreme Court in sealed envelopes. This dataset is believed to pertain to transactions predating April 12, 2019, with subsequent data having been made public by the EC last week.
In a statement today, the EC disclosed, “The Registry of the Supreme Court has returned physical copies alongside a digitized record contained in a sealed cover. The Election Commission of India has now uploaded this digitized dataset from the Supreme Court registry pertaining to electoral bonds on its official website.”
This release comes hot on the heels of the EC’s announcement of the schedule for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, slated to be conducted across seven phases from April 19 to June 1.
The newly published documents solely present raw data, including bond issuance dates, denominations, quantities, originating State Bank of India (SBI) branches, receipt dates, and credit dates. Notably, they do not divulge the unique identifiers of the bonds.
In response, the Trinamool Congress has formally requested SBI for access to these unique bond numbers, in compliance with directives from the Supreme Court. While the BJP has not made such a request, it has furnished raw data to SBI.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati clarified that her party has not received any donations via electoral bonds. Similarly, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) confirmed no such donations were received.
According to data from the EC, the ruling DMK party in Tamil Nadu has garnered ₹656.5 crore through electoral bonds, including a substantial ₹509 crore contribution from lottery magnate Santiago Martin’s
The Congress has pledged to disclose the raw data provided by SBI to the EC. Meanwhile, its Goa unit confirmed a donation of ₹30 lakh from VM Salgaocar, a Vasco da Gama-based company.
In contrast, both the BJP Tripura unit and the Nationalist Congress Party’s West Bengal unit asserted receiving no electoral bond donations.
The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (now Bharat Rashtra Samithi) amassed ₹230.65 crore in bonds between 2018 and 2019.
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The Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka disclosed donors including Embassy Group, Infosys, and Biocon.
Electoral bonds, a significant avenue for political funding, have enabled donors to contribute anonymously via certificates procured from SBI. However, last month, the Supreme Court declared the scheme unconstitutional, citing its infringement on voters’ right to transparency in funding sources. Up until March 2023, the BJP had accounted for just under 48% of all electoral bond transactions, while the Congress had received approximately 11% during the same period.
More than half of all political party donations since 2018 have come through electoral bonds, as reported by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). Nonetheless, this data release still lacks clarity on the mapping of bond buyers to recipients, leaving the sources of individual and corporate contributions to parties ambiguous.
