New Delhi:
The Bharatiya Janata Party was the largest beneficiary of electoral bonds between April 2019 and January 2024 – companies donated Rs 5,594 crore in that period – the Election Commission of India said this week. The BJP pocketed over three times the amount (Rs 1,592 crore) the Trinamool Congress took home and more than four times the amount donated to its arch-rivals Congress (Rs 1,351 crore).
Fourth on the list was former Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi, which was dumped out of power by the Congress in November; the BRS got Rs 1,191 crore.
Odisha’s Biju Janata Dal, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam from Tamil Nadu, and the YSR Congress Party and Telugu Desam Party from Andhra Pradesh are next on the list; the BJD got Rs 775 crore and the DMK got Rs 632 crore, while the TDP raked in Rs 211 crore and the YSRCP Rs 128 crore.
The last big name on the list is the Aam Aadmi Party, which got Rs 65 crore via electoral bonds.
READ | Electoral Bonds Codes Out, Donors Can Be Matched With Parties
Exactly how much each party received through the contentious electoral bonds – in a landmark verdict last month the Supreme Court called the scheme “unconstitutional” – has come to light after the State Bank of India released the alphanumeric codes that match donors to parties.
The SBI – hauled up by the court for first appearing to delay release of electoral bonds data and then neglecting to provide matching codes – submitted the data to the Election Commission on Thursday.
Under the rules, the SBI was the only bank allowed to issue electoral bonds; this, of course, was only till the top court ordered the scheme be scrapped and the public sector bank to stop selling bonds.
Earlier the SBI had released two lists – one of donors and the other of receiving political parties – but without the codes it was not possible to see which donor had given how much to which party.
What was apparent then was that companies like Megha Engineering & Infrastructure Ltd., Qwik Supply Chain Pvt. Ltd., Vedanta, and the Bharti Group were among the top corporate donors.
How Much Did BJP Get From Electoral Bonds?
With the codes, it is now clear the BJP received Rs 584 crore from Megha Engineering & Infrastructure Ltd., and Rs 375 crore from Qwik Supply Chain. Vedanta donated Rs 226 crore and Airtel Rs 183 crore. Other major donors included real estate giants DLF, which gave Rs 133 crore.
Also, Hyderabad-based Navayuga Engineering Company Ltd. – building the tunnel in Uttarakhand’s Silkyara, a portion of which collapsed last year – purchased Rs 55 crore worth of bonds for the BJP.
READ | Firm Building Uttarakhand Tunnel That Collapsed Gave 55 Crore To BJP
How Much Did Trinamool Get From Electoral Bonds?
The party second on the list of beneficiaries – Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool – received Rs 542 crore from Future Gaming & Hotel Services Pvt. Ltd., which is a Coimbatore-based lottery company. It is owned by a Colombian businessman called Santiago Martin, who runs lottery companies worldwide.
READ | Electoral Bonds: Trinamool Biggest Beneficiary Of ‘Lottery King’ Donor
Future Gaming is, in fact, the biggest buyer of electoral bonds; it has donated Rs 1,368 crore between April 2019 and January 2024. The company was in the headlines in July 2019 after the Enforcement Directorate attached assets worth Rs 250 crore in an alleged money laundering scam.
Besides Trinamool, Future Gaming also gave Rs 509 crore to the DMK and around Rs 160 crore to the YSR Congress Party, as well as Rs 100 crore to BJP, the data showed.
Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress also received Rs 281 crore from Haldia Energy and Rs 90 crore from Dhariwal Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd. IFB Agro Industries Ltd., a beverage company with its office in Kolkata, donated Rs 42 crore. Chennai Green Woods, a real estate firm, gave Rs 40 crore.
How Much Did Congress Get From Electoral Bonds?
Meanwhile, the Congress – which today saw the Delhi High Court reject its challenge to re-assessment proceedings by the Income Tax Department – received Rs 110 crore in bonds from Western UP Power Transmission Company Ltd., a Ghaziabad-based firm.
It also received bonds from Vedanta – Rs 104 crore.
MKJ Enterprises, described as a “pioneer in the stainless steel business in India”, donated Rs 69 crore. Yashoda Super Speciality Hospital donated Rs 64 crore. Future Gaming donated Rs 50 crore.
The companies on the list of major donors to political parties in India are involved in various business, ranging from construction and manufacturing to mining and real estate. These are sectors where the role of a government is key, whether to make rules or big-ticket decisions, like tax cuts.
