The Election Commission of India (ECI) has uploaded detailed information regarding electoral bonds onto its official website, meeting the Supreme Court’s deadline. The data, received from the State Bank of India (SBI) on 12 March, encompasses a plethora of crucial details concerning both buyers and recipients of these bonds.
The disclosure, which includes 337 pages detailing the purchasers and purchase dates of electoral bonds and an additional 426 pages outlining the political parties, dates, and amounts redeemed, sheds light on the opaque realm of electoral financing. Notably, the data conceals the identities of bond purchasers and the political parties they donated to.
Among the noteworthy donors are entities such as Grasim Industries, Megha Engineering, and Bharti Airtel, while buyers of electoral bonds feature prominent names like Apollo Tyres, Edelweiss, and Sun Pharma.
However, the revelations don’t end there. The SBI, in a separate development, has informed the Supreme Court that unencashed electoral bonds, totaling 22,217 between 1 April 2019 and 15 February 2024, have been transferred to the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund (PMNRF) as per official protocol. This was reported by The Wire.
Notably, the PMNRF website points out that “PMNRF accepts only voluntary donations by individuals and institutions.”
SBI Chairperson Dinesh Kumar Khara emphasized the bank’s compliance with Supreme Court directives, which followed the court’s ruling earlier this year, deeming the electoral bond scheme “unconstitutional.” Despite initial secrecy provisions under the Modi government, the Supreme Court’s intervention compelled transparency, mandating the disclosure of all pertinent details.
As per The Wire report, the SBI’s affidavit shows that 3,346 electoral bonds were purchased between 1 April 2019 and 11 April 2019 when the bonds were first issued. Only 1609 bonds were redeemed out of 3,346. Then, between 12 April 2019 and 15 February 2024, at least 18, 871 electoral bonds were purchased. In this period, 20,421 electoral bonds were redeemed.
