New Delhi: While questions pertaining to the legality and opacity of the Electoral Bond scheme still persist, the 19th round of sale of electoral bonds from January 1-10 – a month before the start of assembly elections in five states – has secured the second-highest amount of donations recorded in any phase.
The sale of electoral bonds worth over Rs 1,213 crore recorded in January 2022 is second only to the Rs 2,256 crore garnered through the sale of electoral bonds in the ninth phase of sale from April 1 to 20, 2019 – ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
In response to a query filed by Right to Information (RTI) activist Commodore Lokesh Batra (Retd), the State Bank of India (SBI), which alone is empowered to sell these electoral bonds through designated branches, responded on Friday, February 4, with details of the sales.
Over 90% of sales through Rs 1 crore denomination bonds
As per the data provided by SBI, the sale of electoral bonds during the 19th phase took place at 12 branches. A total of 2,068 bonds were sold, of which 1,156 were of the Rs 1 crore denomination, 536 were of Rs 10 lakh denomination, 365 were of Rs 1 lakh denomination, 10 were of Rs 10,000 denomination and one was of Rs 1,000 denomination.
Also read: As Electoral Bonds Go on Sale Again, Concerns on Scheme’s Opacity Remain Unheard
Transparency activists have pointed out in the past too that the sale of a large number of Rs 1 crore bonds was indicative of donations by rich individuals and large business houses to political parties through this scheme, in which the name of the donor is kept anonymous. These big donations, they claimed, showed that through anonymous political donations big companies were eyeing bigger returns.
The SBI data also revealed that the highest number of bonds sold in the 19th phase was in the commercial hub of Mumbai (548) followed by 491 in Kolkata, 252 in Panaji, 232 in Chennai, 161 in New Delhi, 135 in Hyderabad and 132 in Gandhinagar.
The break-up provided by the bank on the denomination of bonds sold in various branches revealed that the most number of Rs 1 crore bonds were sold in Mumbai (485), followed by Chennai (227), Kolkata (134), Hyderabad (125) and New Delhi (114).
The data also revealed that 2,063 of the 2,068 bonds that were sold were encashed. The maximum number of bonds (1,409) were encashed in New Delhi’s main branch followed by 361 in Kolkata and 100 in Chennai. All the Rs 1 crore denomination bonds were encashed. Of the 1,156 that were sold, 745 were encashed in New Delhi, 212 in Kolkata and 100 in Chennai.
Batra’s analysis of the previous 18 phases of electoral bond sales has revealed that big money drives their sale. It had also revealed that over 92% of electoral bonds sold in the past four years were of the Rs 1 crore denomination.
The electoral bond scheme was introduced with the Finance Bill 2017 and notified in January 2018 to provide funding to political parties which have secured not less than 1% of the votes polled in the last general election to the Lok Sabha or a state assembly. However, the manner in which it allowed anonymous donations, of which nearly three-fourths went to the ruling BJP, had been called into question.
Concerns over legality and opacity
The Election Commission had in 2017 raised serious concerns about the scheme. Subsequently, petitions were filed in the Supreme Court challenging its legality.
Also read: Electoral Bonds: ‘No Public Interest’ in Revealing Details of Political Donors, Says Top RTI Body
In July last year, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) had moved the Supreme Court seeking urgent hearing of a batch of petitions that had challenged the constitutional validity of the electoral bonds scheme. In its petition, the Left party had stated that the matter pertained to “the right to know and have information of who, rather which entities/corporations are funding our political parties, potential quid pro quos, corruption, etc”.
“It is important for a functioning democracy to have a transparent system of political funding. Since the adoption of the Electoral Bonds Scheme in 2018…there has been a massive amount [of] anonymous donations which challenge the very core of our democratic functioning,” the CPI(M) petition had said.
Thereafter, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury had on multiple occasions – the last being December 30, 2021 evening – tweeted on the need for an urgent hearing in the Supreme Court in the matter. In this tweet, he said that while the petitions remain unheard of for more than three years, this had permitted BJP to display obscene money power.
19th tranche of Electoral Bonds comes, predictably, before another crucial assembly elections.
Petitions challenging this legalisation of political corruption remain unheard by the SC for more than 3 years.
This permits BJPs display of obscene money power.https://t.co/y581jyaISq— Sitaram Yechury (@SitaramYechury) December 30, 2021