• Future Gaming and Hotel Services purchased ₹1,368 crore worth electoral bonds, most among firms
• Twenty-two firms donated more than ₹100 crore during this period
• BJP received ₹6,060 crore, highest among all parties

NEW DELHI (TIP): Future Gaming and Hotel Services PR whose managing director is the well-known lottery magnate Santiago Martin, is the largest donor to political parties for the period April 12, 2019 to January 24, 2024, the electoral bonds data released by the Election Commission, on receipt from the State Bank of India, revealed.

The firm donated a cumulative sum of ₹1,368 crore in electoral bonds during this period. Incidentally, the Enforcement Directorate had attached ₹411 crore in the bank accounts of the firm and other companies in March 2022 and had later filed a prosecution complaint against it under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 before the PMLA Court, Kolkata on September 09, 2023.

Twenty-two firms donated more than ₹100 crore during this period. Here is a list of top buyers of electoral bonds.

Future Gaming and Hotel Services: Rs 1,368 crore

Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd: Rs 966 crore

Qwik Supply Chain Private Ltd: Rs 410 crore

Vedanta Ltd: Rs 400 crore

Haldia Energy Ltd: Rs 377 crore

Bharati Group: Rs 247 crore

Essel Mining and Industries Ltd: Rs 224 crore

Western UP Power Transmission: Rs 220 crore

Keventer Foodpark Infra Ltd: Rs 194 crore

Madanlal Ltd: Rs 185 crore

DLF Group: Rs 170 crore

Yashoda Super Speciality Hospital: Rs 162 crore

Utkal Alumina International: Rs 145.3 crore

Jindal Steel and Power Ltd: Rs 123 crore

Birla Carbon India: Rs 105 crore

Rungta Sons: Rs 100 crore

In total, electoral bonds worth over ₹12,155 crore were purchased by donors during this period and more than ₹12,769 crore were encashed by all the parties in the period.

The information has been put up in public domain by the Election Commission of India (ECI) after The State Bank of India (SBI) had disclosed this information on March 12. The Supreme Court had directed the ECI to host this information on its website by March 15.

The SBI supplied this data in two sets. The first set contains the date of purchase of each Electoral Bond, the name of the purchaser of the bond, and the denomination of the bond purchased.

Here are the links to bond data.

https://bsmedia.business-standard.com/_media/bs/data/general-file-upload/2024-03/e-bonds1.pdf

https://bsmedia.business-standard.com/_media/bs/data/general-file-upload/2024-03/e-bonds2.pdf

Electoral bonds were introduced in the country on January 28, 2017 by then Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Arun Jaitley. The objective was to facilitate transparent political funding. These bonds, issued exclusively by SBI, served as a designated financial instrument that offered individuals and corporate entities the opportunity to contribute funds to political parties discreetly, as those bonds had no identification of the donor and the political party to which it was issued.

Electoral bonds were available in denominations of Rs 1,000 and could be acquired from SBI branches during specific periods stipulated by the government. Political parties could then redeem those bonds through their designated accounts within a prescribed timeframe.

The anonymous political funding via electoral bonds was made unconstitutional by the SC, in its landmark judgement on 15 February 2024 and the five-judge Constitution bench mandated the ECI to disclose donors, the amounts donated by them, and the recipients.

According to the affidavit submitted by SBI on March 13, between April 2019 and February 15, 2024, a total of 22,217 electoral bonds were issued. Of these bonds, 22,030 were redeemed by political parties, while the remaining 187 were redeemed, with the funds deposited into the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund.

According to data presented in Lok Sabha during the Budget session, Minister of State in the Finance Ministry Pankaj Chaudhry said that a total of Rs 16,500 crore were collected from 30 tranches of electoral bonds issued between March 2018 to January 2024. He added, “The commission paid to the State Bank of India by the Government of India for the issuance and redemption of Electoral Bonds from Phase I to Phase XXV is about Rs 8.57 crore. Also, the amount paid by the Government of India to Security Printing & Minting Corporation of India Ltd (SPMCIL) to date is about Rs 1.90 crore.”

(Agencies