Election Commission uploads electoral bond data with latest details submitted by SBI

Election Commission uploads electoral bond data with unique alphanumeric code on its website

The Election Commission of India on Thursday uploaded the electoral bond data on its website with the latest details submitted by the State Bank of India. The poll watchdog said it has uploaded the data on electoral bonds on its website as received from SBI on an "as is where is basis".

The Election Commission of India (PTI)

“In compliance of Hon’ble Supreme Court's directions, SBI has provided data pertaining to electoral bonds to ECI today ie March 21, 2024,” the Election Commission said in a post on X.

“ECI has uploaded it on its website as received from SBI on “as is where is basis”,” the poll panel said as it shared a link to its website where two PDFs containing all data received from the bank have been uploaded.

While the latest donor list includes the name of the purchaser of the bond, its denomination and specific number, the recipient list has the name of the party that encashed it, the last four digits of the bank account number of political parties that redeemed the bond and the denomination and the unique number of the bond encashed.

"The complete bank account numbers and KYC details of the political parties are not being made public as it may compromise the security of the account (cyber security)," it said.

"Similarly, KYC details of purchasers are also not being made public for security reasons, apart from the fact that such information is not fed/collated in the system. However, they are not necessary for identifying the political parties," the affidavit filed by bank chairperson Dinesh Kumar Khara said.

The disclosure comes days after the Supreme Court told the SBI to stop being "selective" in releasing details related to the electoral bonds scheme. The top court asserted that there was “no manner of doubt that the SBI is required to make complete disclosure of all the details” which are in its possession.