Electoral bonds: Who received biggest amount from ‘Lottery King’ Santiago Martin's firm?

Apart from DMK, YSR Congress, BJP and Congress, the firm also donated to Sikkim Krantikari Morcha and Sikkim Democratic Front.

Updated on: Mar 22, 2024, 08:09:18 IST

By HT News Desk

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New Delhi: Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress received ₹540 crore from Santiago Martin's Future Gaming through electoral bonds, becoming the largest beneficiary of the 'Lottery King's' firm. The Bharatiya Janata Party also received ₹100 crore from the company.

Apart from DMK, YSR Congress, BJP and Congress, the firm also donated to Sikkim Krantikari Morcha and Sikkim Democratic Front.

Future Gaming turned out to be the biggest buyer of electoral bonds, with a total purchase value of ₹1,368 crore.

Santiago Martin's company gave ₹509 crore to Tamil Nadu's ruling party DMK, nearly ₹160 crore to Andhra Pradesh's YSR Congress Party, ₹100 crore to BJP and ₹50 crore to Congress. The two parties of Sikkim together got less than ₹10 crore from the firm.

Megha Engineering, the second biggest donor which gave ₹966 crore, mainly donated to the BJP, Bharat Rashtra Samiti and DMK. It donated ₹584 crore to the BJP.

Qwik Supply, the third largest donor to political parties, bought electoral bonds worth ₹410 crore between 2021-22 and 2023-24. It gave ₹395 crore to the BJP and ₹25 crore to the Shiv Sena.

The BJP is the biggest beneficiary of the electoral bonds scheme with total donations exceeding ₹6000 crore.

The party received ₹346 crore from Keventers Food Park, MKJ Enterprises and Madanlal Ltd -- three firms with the same Kolkata address. Vedanata contributed ₹226 crore and Haldia Energy ₹81 crore.

Vedanta also donated ₹125 crore to the Congress.

The BJP also got donations worth ₹80 crore from Western UP Power and Transmission Company, and ₹42 crore from Welspun.

Also read: Who is ‘Lottery King’ Santiago Martin, whose firm donated ₹1368 crore?

Industrialist Lakshmi Mittal donated ₹35 crore to the BJP.

The Aam Aadmi Party received donations from Spicejet and Tech Mahindra. Megha Engineering And Infrastructures Limited, Torrent Pharmaceuticals Limited, BG Shirke Construction Technology Pvt Ltd, Bajaj Auto Ltd, Tech Mahindra Ltd, Spicejet Limited, Derive Trading And Resorts Private Limit, Vardhman Textiles Ltd and V M Salgaocar Corporation Pvt Ltd were among the major companies that donated electoral bonds to the party.

The Election Commission on Thursday released the alpha-numeric data using which donors could be matched to political parties.

With inputs from PTI, ANI

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HT News Desk
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