Lottery, Infra, Mining, Real Estate Firms Top Electoral Bonds Chart But No Info on Who Paid Whom

The nature of the data uploaded to the ECI’s website makes it rather difficult to infer whether there were any quid pro quo dealings between companies which bought the bonds and different governments.

New Delhi: A day before its court-ordered deadline, the Election Commission of India (ECI) uploaded data provided to it by the State Bank of India on electoral bonds purchased and encashed since 2019 onto its website.

The commission uploaded two sets of data. One file contains a date-wise list of bond purchases by companies and the other file contains a date-wise list of deposits by political parties that encashed the bonds. Although none of the data was collated by company or party, The Wire has drawn up a chart of the 30 largest donors.

Thirty largest purchasers of electoral bonds. Source: Compiled by The Wire from PDF uploaded by the Election Commission of India.

 

 

 

 

 

The data shows that companies and individuals purchased these bonds in three denominations – Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore. These date back to April 12, 2019. The electoral bonds scheme was launched in 2018 and some Rs 2500 crore of bonds were sold in the first year but that data has not been made available yet.

While the data published by the ECI on Thursday gives us a list of the corporations, private business houses and individuals that donated to political parties between 2019 and 2024, it doesn’t provide any information on which party redeemed the bonds of what company.

Though the Supreme Court had clearly observed that the opacity surrounding political donations could be the basis of quid pro quo arrangements between companies and political parties in power, the bench this week  told the State Bank of India that at this stage what it wanted quickly was the bare data.

All electoral bonds contain a unique identification number – or what is known as a “unique matching code” – that could be used to match each donor to the beneficiary political party.

Given this, experts say the SBI could have easily furnished details about which political party redeemed which bonds, especially when the top court had ended the controversial scheme for the sake of transparency.

The nature of the data uploaded makes it rather difficult to infer whether there were any quid pro quo dealings between companies which bought the bonds and different governments.

The top five

A quick look at the numbers show that the BJP’s share of donations is the biggest at 46.74% or around Rs 11,562.5 crore.

Its national rival, the Congress, garnered a mere 9.3% out of a total of Rs 16,518.11 crore donated to political parties through the bonds in the same period.

The remaining amount was shared by other parties.

The top five donors are Future Gaming and Hotel Services PR (a company run by ‘lottery king’ Santago Martin),  Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Ltd, Haldia Energy Ltd, Vedanta Ltd, and Qwik Supply Chain Pvt Ltd owned by Reliance Industries.

When the donations made by three companies headed by Radhesham Khetan – Keventers, Madanlal Ltd and MKJ Ltd – are combined, the donations made total Rs 572 crore, and place him in third position.

Among the other top donors are Essel Mining run by the Zee group, DLF, the Western UP Power Transmission Ltd, the Yashoda Hospital in Ghaziabad, Alok Narayan Pandey, Bellway International, Piramal Enterprises, Sun Pharma, Muthoot Finance, Vedanta Group, Bajaj Auto, Bajaj Finance, Bharti Airtel, Finolex Cables, Pearl Global, Navayuga, Salgaocar Corp, Torrent, Future Gaming, ITC Limited, and others.

The highest contribution came from Future Gaming and Hotel Services PR at Rs 1,368 crore. This was followed by Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Ltd, which bought Rs 966 crore worth of electoral bonds.

Qwik Supply Chain Pvt Ltd bought Rs 410 crore worth of electoral bonds. Vedanta Ltd and Haldia Energy Ltd bought Rs 400 crore and Rs 377 crore worth of bonds, respectively.

SBI EC Details by Taniya Roy on Scribd

SBI EC Details of Political Parties by Taniya Roy on Scribd

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Shailesh Gandhi, a transparency activist and former information commissioner, says: “Data revealed by [the ECI] regarding electoral bonds does not reveal bond numbers, making it impossible to link donors to political parties. Even if the number had not been recorded digitally, this could have been done in twenty days.”

It is unclear whether the SBI will furnish these details soon or if the Supreme Court will be forced to intervene in the matter again.

Some have also questioned the SBI’s motivations given that it promptly handed over the data on Tuesday despite it asking for three months’ extra time just earlier this month.

However, the files shared by the SBI expose a close nexus between corporations and political parties, especially the ruling BJP, which has received the maximum donations of any party from electoral bonds.

The nexus was well-known but is now backed by solid data, even though the SBI, the country’s biggest bank, has attempted to retain a layer of darkness around the data.

ECI seeks modification of Supreme Court order, says advocate

Advocate Prashant Bhushan posted on X (formerly Twitter): “After SBI, Election Commission now files an application for modification of SC order in #ElectoralBonds case! The govt is desperate to hide information! Gets one caged parrot after another to file applications for time/modification.”

As per Bar and Bench, the modification plea seeks that data submitted to the court be returned to the poll body as the ECI had not maintained copies of the same.

According to the Supreme Court’s February order, the SBI was asked to include in its disclosure the date bonds were purchased on, their denominations and the names of those who purchased them.

It also ordered for data on every electoral bond encashed by political parties since April 12, 2019 to be furnished, including the date they were encashed on and the bonds’ denominations.

Two days before the court’s original deadline, the SBI said it would need time till June 30 this year because it had to compile 44,434 sets of information from two ‘silos’.

But the court asked the bank to hand over the data by March 6, adding that it may proceed against the bank on grounds on wilful disobedience if it did not meet this new deadline.In its press note, the ECI said it uploaded the data in compliance with the Supreme Court’s orders and “as received from [the] SBI on [an] ‘as is where is’ basis”, adding that it had made this data available at the https://www.eci.gov.in/candidate-politicalparty URL.

“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,” the ECI continued to say.

Electoral bonds are interest-free financial instruments that individuals or groups may buy to make anonymous donations to political parties.

But in February, the Supreme Court said the bonds violated voters’ right to information and were thus unconstitutional.

It asked the SBI to provide data on electoral bonds purchased and encashed since April 12, 2019 to the ECI by March 6, although the bank did so only on Tuesday after the court rejected its request for extra time till the end of June.

This is a developing story.