BJP Emerges As Top Recipient Of Electoral Bonds
The State Bank of India on Thursday, releated detailed report on the electoral bonds including alphanumeric codes that link donors to beneficiaries, donor details, and parties that redeemed the bonds. The development came after SBI was ordered by the Supreme Court to disclose the data by June 30.
After scrutinising the data published by the Election Commission of India, India Express released a report which revealed that the top 10 of the total 487 donors funded the ruling saffron party. These donations received by the BJP accounted for Rs 2,119 crore, contributing 35 percent of the party's electoral bond kitty, which stands at a total of around Rs 6,000 crore.
Termed as "unconstitutional", the Electoral Bonds scheme was scrapped by the Supreme Court on February 15. As directed by the apex court, SBI filed a compliance affidavit, following which ECI published detailed data on the electoral bonds. It turned out to be the largest disclosure regarding the scheme that provided absolute anonymity to donors.
Future Games And Hotel Services Limited
As per the report, the data revealed that the top donor Future Games and Hotel Services Limited provided Rs 100 crore funds to BJP through bonds. Out of its Rs 1368 crore worth of bonds, the company split the remaining amount between Trinamool Congress (Rs 542 crore) and the DMK (Rs 503).
Megha Group
Megha Group emerged as the second top donor for both BJP and Congress. Out of the Rs 1,192 crore worth of bonds that it purchased, BJP received almost half of it (Rs 584 crore), which was five times more than that of Congress (Rs 110 crore), Indian Express reported.
MKJ Group
The place of the third top donor was taken by MKJ Group, which is headquartered in Kolkata. Four companies of the firm, including Madanlal Ltd, Keventer Food Park Infra Ltd, and Sasmal Infrastructure bought bonds worth Rs 617 crore. Out of MKJ Group's total investment, the saffron party received Rs 372 crore, TMC got Rs 47 crore, and Congress obtained Rs 161 crore.
Aditya Birla Group
Eight companies of Aditya Birla Group purchased bonds worth Rs 584 crore. Out of this, the group's four top donor companies purchased a total of Rs 561 crore worth of bonds. These included Haldia Energy (Rs 377 crore), Dhariwal Infrastructure (Rs 115 crore), Philips Carbon( Rs 35 crore) and Crescent Power (Rs 34 crore). TMC received Rs 419 crore, BJP got Rs 126 crore, and Congress obtained Rs 15 crore.
RPSG Group
The fifth-largest donor was RPSG Group with a total bond purchase value of Rs 553 crore. Out of this, Rs 245 crore went to the BJD, and Rs 230 crore to the BJP.
Qwik Supply Chain Pvt Ltd
An associate company of Reliance Industries Ltd, Qwik Supply Chain Pvt Ltd spent Rs 410 crore on electoral bonds. Out of this, the BJP received Rs 375 crore and the Shiv Sena Rs 25 crore.
Vedanta
Additionally, Vedanta Limited, the seventh largest buyer bought Rs 401 crore worth of bonds out of which BJP received Rs 227 crore, Congress received Rs 104 crore, and BJD received Rs 40 crore.
Bharti Group
BJP also received Rs 197 crore worth of bonds from four companies of the Bharti Group that purchased bonds worth Rs 247 crore.
Jindal Group
The saffron party also got bonds worth Rs 20 crore from four Jindal companies which donated Rs 192 crore in bonds. BJD, however, received bonds worth Rs 100 crore, the report stated.
Torrent Group
The tenth largest donor was Ahmedabad-based Torrent group, which donated a total of Rs 184 crore. Out of which, BJP received Rs 107 crore, while AAP and Congres received Rs 7 crore and Rs 17 crore, respectively.
