E-Paper
Electoral bonds details: Bharti Airtel, Apollo, Lakshmi Mittal, Edelweiss, PVR, Sun Pharma among donors
Electoral bonds details: Apollo Tyres, Lakshmi Mittal, Edelweiss, PVR, Keventer, Sula Wine, Welspun, Sun Pharma are among the buyers.
The Election Commission of India published the data on electoral bonds on its website a day before the deadline. The data was published on the site as it was received from the State Bank of India on March 12. The SBI on Tuesday evening submitted the details of entities which purchased the now-scrapped electoral bonds and political parties which redeemed them. The Supreme Court gave the Election Commission time till 5pm on March 15 to publish this data on its site.
The Supreme Court had on February 15 scrapped the scheme that allowed anonymous political funding, calling it "unconstitutional" and ordered disclosure by the EC of donors, the amount donated by them and recipients.
The SBI had sought time till June 30 for disclosure of the details. Its plea, however, was rejected by the apex court, and it asked the bank to submit all details to the Election Commission by the close of working hours on Tuesday.
“It may be recalled that in the said matter ECI has consistently and categorically weighed in favour of disclosure and transparency, a position reflected in the proceedings of the Hon'ble Supreme Court and noted in the order also,” ECI said as it published the data on the site.
Details of purchase, donors
The first part of the details contains 337 pages detailing the entities that bought electoral bonds and the date of purchase. The second part containing 426 pages provided the details of the political parties, dates and the amount. It cannot be known which company bought whose bonds. The bond numbers have not been provided.
Donors to political parties through the scheme included Grasim Industries, Megha Engineering, Torrent Power, Bharti Airtel, DLF Commercial Developers, and Vedanta Ltd.
Apollo Tyres, Lakshmi Mittal, Edelweiss, PVR, Keventer, Sula Wine, Welspun, Sun Pharma among buyers.
Recipients of funds through these bonds include BJP, Congress, AIADMK, BRS, Shiv Sena, TDP, YSR Congress, DMK, JDS, NCP, Trinamool Congress, JDU, RJD, AAP, SP.
What are electoral bonds?
Electoral bond was a mode for Indian political parties to receive funding/donations. The scheme was introduced in 2017-18. It was struck down by the Supreme Court in February.
The State Bank of India issued bonds worth ₹16,518 crore in 30 tranches since the beginning of the scheme in 2018.
