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.

New Delhi:

The Supreme Court today came down hard on the State Bank of India for not sharing the complete data on electoral bonds, a scheme that allowed individuals and businesses to donate anonymously to political parties. The court had struck down the scheme and directed the bank to share all details on the donations made in the last 5 years.

Hearing a petition by the Election Commission, the Supreme Court said that the data provided by the Supreme Court was incomplete. The five-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, directed SBI to disclose electoral bond numbers as well, in addition to the details it has already shared.

“Who is appearing for the State Bank of India? They have not disclosed the bond numbers. It has to be disclosed by the State Bank of India,” Chief Justice Chandrachud said right at the outset of the hearing.

In its notice to SBI, the Supreme Court bench has asked the bank to explain the lapse during the next hearing on March 18.

The electoral bond numbers would help establish the link between donors and political parties.

Electoral bonds allowed individuals and businesses to donate money to political parties without declaring it. They were introduced by the BJP government in 2018 as an alternative to cash donations and had been pitched as an initiative to bring transparency in political funding.

The Supreme Court struck down the scheme last month, terming it unconstitutional and over concerns that this could lead to a quid pro quo. The court also urged SBI to share all details about the purchase and redemption of the bonds with the Election Commission.

In its petition, the poll panel said the March 11 order had noted that the copies of the documents submitted by it to the court in a sealed cover during the course of the hearing be maintained at the office of the EC.

The EC said it did not keep any copy of the documents and added that those may be returned so that it can comply with the court’s directions.